Aston's Cube

A couple of grid draft decks:


















There's one more 2 drop but I can't see it in the picture I took and I really can't remember what it was.

This was a fun matchup, I think we ended something like 5-4 in favour of the white weenie deck with 5 forests for one green card. Mine was the five colour greed deck, and when it worked (which was pretty often) it felt great, but when my opponent drew his one Wasteland it felt like I couldn't win. I never managed to cast Ajani or Emrakul, but I did Living Death to wipe my opponent's board and bring back Mulldrifter, Phyrexian Rager and Satyr Wayfinder.
 
Merry Cubemas!

Aston Vial-Smasher Goblins










Claude UG Crystal Shard










Patrick RB Value











Callum Jeskai Control










James Monogreen Ramp











The Farseek with only Overgrown Tomb to fetch is a nice touch in this one.

Dan BW Flickerwisp










There's not meant to be two Flickerwisps in the cube but somehow another one found its way in for this draft.

Hannah 5C Urza









 
I do love Flickerwisp, but I already run Restoration Angel and Kor Skyfisher as similar effects and I'm a bit wary of including too much flicker as it does add to on-board complexity. I couldn't fault anyone for doubling up.

e: Sorcery speed flickering isn't so bad actually with regard to board complexity, but it's still a consideration.
 
Some thoughts from my experience over the long weekend at GP Birmingham.

First of all, my non-cube endeavours - I was signed up for the Legacy GP, planning on playing Death and Taxes, but a couple of nights before I had a crisis of confidence in my deck and switched over to the Constructed Fanatic package. I'm still not 100% convinced on these packages, as over the four days I was still only able to play in 5 events out of the six, in part because most of Thursday was taken up actually sorting out the switch, and it does commit you to playing a lot of events even if you would maybe rather not. The scheduling meant that the earliest event I would play in each day was at 12:00 and then I played another at 4:30, meaning that as my friends in the main event were finishing up I still had another 1-2 rounds to go. If however I had entered those five events separately it would have cost me an extra £25.00 so there is some saving to be made.

In constructed I played 2 legacy events. The first was with Death and Taxes going 1-2 losing to Belcher and Elves (both terrible matchups) and beating Miracles (not a great matchup but not so bad), which in my mind justified my decision to drop from the main event. The second event I played Miracles and went 0-3, losing to Sneak and Show, Aggro Loam (I think, I'm not that familiar with the deck) and Burn. The deck is so hard to play, I felt like I could have won each of those matches but just didn't know how.

I also played Boros Monarch in Pauper to much more success, going 2-0 and splitting the last round in three events, which gets you half a box and some prize tickets, or a box and more tickets for the Sunday double-up event. This deck is so cool.

I also managed to get in a 9 person and an 8 person cube draft. I unfortunately didn't manage to save the decklists, but I can remember some general archetypes:

Aston - UWR control/tokens and GBu God Pharoh's Gift
My first draft started off UW controlly, then I saw Jeskai Ascendancy and went more in that direction. I got passed a third pick Jace the Mindsculptor, without which I don't think I would have stood a chance in any of my games. I was lacking a bit in cheap spells for ascendancy, but I did manage to deal 22 damage to someone in one turn, and still went on to lose as they slammed Sword of Feast and Famine to discard my lethal Elspeth Knight-Errant, and untap and play Batterskull to hold the fort. Hordeling Outburst was a new card for this deck and I liked it better than Empty the Warrens, which it replaced.

Second draft my picks were Champion of the Parish, Soulfire Grandmaster, Recruiter of the Guard, then I saw fourth pick God-Pharoh's Gift (which gives you a Gate to the Afterlife to go along with it) and hard switched into that. I also got to try out Oversold Cemetery which was decried for being too powerful as it rebought Shriekmaw and Walking Ballista over and over again.

Charlie - Bu Reanimator and Naya Humans
I got smashed in one game by Dark Ritual into Liliana the Last Hope, which went ultimate very quickly, but the reanimator side of his deck was shut down pretty well by Jace. The second draft looked sweet, it was all the humans in GRW with at least one Champion of the Parish and a Thalia's Lieutenant. It could get some very explosive starts, but that mana base was a bit shaky.

Jay - 4 colour Mentor/Pyromancer and 4 colour control
I only saw a bit of the first deck but he was triggering Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer off Traverse the Ulvenwald and Cabal Therapy, which looked like a lot of fun. I played against the second deck which was planeswalkers and value - he got to play Kess, Dissident Mage to immediately flashback Swords to Plowshares.

Claude - WU Oketra's Monument and Monored
Another Oketra's Monument convert. The card is so sweet.
He also drafted monored, but I'm not sure how well he did with it. The deck is still playable but not the bogeyman it was in earlier versions of the cube.

Ethan - GR Ramp and Ug Split Screen
The first deck was fairly straightfoward but did have some cool parts, like a Birthing Pod chain from 1 to 7 to get out Myr Battlesphere if the ramp plan didn't pay off. He also Genesis Waved for 3 against me and hit elf elf land which seems way above expectation! The second was kind of a Split Screen buildaround, it was mostly blue with green for things like Coiling Oracle and Scavenging Ooze. Unfortunately I think someone else got a few of the good Split Screen payoffs in Courser of Kruphix and Oracle of Mul Daya, but he still said he really liked the card even without much synergy. This was also the deck that led to the game where his opponent Phyrexian Metamorphed the Split Screen.

There were a few other decks but I didn't get much of a chance to see them in action: Grixis control, 5c Urza, Two big green, one with colourless and one without, Esper God Pharoh's Gift, and another reanimator deck with Bazaar of Baghdad and Cephalid Colliseum. Split Screen and Oketra's Monument went down very well out of the new cards, Oversold Cemetery was quite unpopular.
 

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
Hey Aston,

Did you know that someone called Aston did a grid draft of your cube?
Fascinating coincidence, to be sure.
Video ain't half bad either.
Here's to hoping they do another one!
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Sweet work Aston! That already looks so much more polished than the first video! You're still switching sides after the draft though ;) You also sneakily gloss over the second Birthing Pod that appears, that might take people off guard. All in all, quality content, and I could follow the action well!
 
Two cube drafts yesterday, my friend's pauper cube and then my cube. Here's a couple of decks (from memory, the orzhov deck is a couple of cards short)

Aston Orzhov Value Pauper










This deck went 3-0 and was a ton of fun to play, a lot like a supercharged RNA Orzhov deck. Coalition Honor Guard did some work.

Aston Antiquities War










I managed to go 4-0 with this, although it was thanks to some bad draws on opponents' parts and one game where my opponent missed lethal by 1 point when they could have wastelanded their own land to grow their Knight of the Reliquary. Cranial Plating on a Smuggler's Copter or the third chapter of Antiquities War were some big damage.
 
I went to the local legacy monthly tournament this Sunday and as it's unsanctioned and full proxies are allowed, I brewed up a deck myself for maybe the first time ever:-









With wish targets in the board being another Dreadnought, Emrakul or Mosswort Bridge, Karakas, or Cavern of Souls.

The idea of the deck is that Phryexian Dreadnought lets you activate Mosswort Bridge and cast Emrakul (or if you're unlucky, a Stifle or another Dreadnought for a quick 12/12), with Brainstorm/Sylvan Library/Worldly Tutor to set it up. It wasn't the most competitive field - I played against UB Painter's Servant with Narset/Walk the Eons, Hogaak Bridgevine, Abzan Nic Fit which might have had Rectors as well, 5c Humans, and then Grixis Delver and Storm as "real" decks, and managed a 3-3 record which is actually a lot better than I expected. Honestly the most effective part of the deck was just making a quick dreadnought and protecting it, rather than the Mosswort Bridge combo, but I did pull it off a few times including one turn 2. It's pretty silly but it does do a powerful thing every once in a while.

Best play of the tournament: My opponent casts Gravecrawler into Altar of Dementia, and at the end of their turn I Worldly Tutor. And then they mill me for 2.

Bonus cube list









This was drafted by Callum, my Hogaak Bridgevine opponent, after he got knocked out of top 8. It crushed me soundly and he said he thought it was one of the most powerful decks he'd ever drafted from my cube.
 
GP Birmingham was this weekend. I played some side events (Pauper and Battlebond mostly - I hadn't played Battlebond before and I enjoyed it, although I would prefer to play it Bo3). But most importantly, Cube! We had seven players and a mix of archetypes - Mono-red, Jund Birthing Pod, GB Yawgmoth, Abzan Value Reanimator, Jeskai Ascendancy, Bant Midrange, and my deck, which I was very pleased with: four colour artifacts:








Scrapyard Recombiner was really good, it searches up almost all the artifact creatures in the deck and lets you get super value off Scrap Trawler. If you have this sort of theme, you should definitely give it a try.
 
Couple decks from Cubemas. We drafted twice but it was a bit chaotic so I only managed to record my deck and one other deck, both from the second draft. I had a sweet UR spells deck in the first draft with Young Pyromancer, Saheeli, all that good stuff, and a couple of the best Manamorphoses of all time: one to pump Figure of Destiny to 4/4 off 2 Mountains and an Island, and one in conjunction with Baral to ritual out Torrential Gearhulk a turn early. Card is sweet.

Anyway, here's what I had for this one:










3-1 record, I should have retired at 3-0 but got goaded into one more round where Elesh Norn destroyed me twice in short order. Redundancy on the Murderous Redcap combo was very nice, but mostly it was value city.











Some sweet Life combos in this with Goblin Bombardment and Jeskai Ascendancy, but according to the pilot it didn't really come together.
 
Cubemas 2: Cube Harder was this weekend, and it was very well attended with 13 people over the course of the day. We had two nine player cube drafts, two poker games, smash bros, Theros: Beyond Death and probably even more that I didn't see. Here's a couple of decks:

Aston RG Thug










This is the first Red/Green deck I've enjoyed playing. It was incredibly rude, as any deck with Plow Under and Eternal Witness can be, and although it has ramp elements it didn't really play out like a ramp deck. I unfortunately never managed to make a token with Titania, although she was very good in conjunction with Treetop Village to make it effectively unblockable. I also somehow forgot that Oracle of Mul Daya has the "play lands from library" text, and only did that when I had it in conjunction with Courser of Kruphix. Even so, I managed a 2-1, beating 4 colour sacrifice/Jeskai Ascendancy and UB Artifact Aggro, and losing to GW ramp - turns out Crucible of Worlds is good against my land destruction cards.

Second draft

Mardu Artifact Aggro








This was another unusual colour combination as Mardu never really comes up, but it worked really well. I have to say it's only just Mardu, as the only red card is Thopter Engineer and the only card that requires black is Tymna. I maybe should have splashed blue as well, because I had a copy of the Antiquities War in my sideboard and an Underground Sea to cast it. In the end it didn't make much of a difference as I went 4-0, beating Uw artifact control, UG ramp, Mono Red, and Sultai Midrange. Mishra's Workshop doesn't make it out of the ULD all that often, but here it was insane - any game I had it in my opening hand felt unloseable. I was otherwise very happy with how the rest of my cards performed. Thopter Engineer was one I wasn't all that sure about, but it's played out very well. Giving Signal Pest or Steel Overseer haste is a big game.

In Theros I drafted GWr with The First Iroan Games, Bronzehide Lion and Klothys, God of Destiny. First Iroan Games was very impressive but a little delicate, as a couple of times when I ran it out on turn 3 the token got killed and it didn't do much of anything else. I went 2-1, losing to BR with Kroxa.
 
Yes, Cranial Plating in particular killed people very quickly. The Swords don't have protection in my cube so they're a little easier to deal with, but with the amount of evasive threats I had they were still very effective.

Jitte I think has sadly had its time. I personally don't mind playing against it that much, but it's one of the cards that generates the most complaints so it's going back to the binder.
 
Top