Dom Harvey
Contributor
For red 6's there's Crater Hellion or a personal fave, Predator Dragon.
CML's Cube (405, polychromatic)
- Thread starter CML
- Start date
Chris, I appreciate the justifications. From a player perspective though I do consider cards like Nekrataal and Skinrender pretty vital to the success of my deck. I know there are many cards you don't run because they have high raw power, but it feels like there's some bias against the midrange cards. Cards like Creakwood Liege are really not what I am looking for to put a W on the scoreboard. I know you experiment a lot, so I would at least try a more conventional midrange package for a couple drafts and see how you like the dynamic.
CML
Contributor
jason -- i love cip effects too! so much that restoration angel is one of the few universal 'high picks' in the cube, and once every few drafts someone is able to venser venser. maybe i love them a little less than wizards design right now but i do love a nice 187. your insistence on this point, which i very much appreciate, got me to thinking. the bant midrange decks, with their blink effects and gross value, are the best midrange decks in cube.
so maybe you're right and the jund midrange decks need some more dudes like skinrender and nekrataal. right now the r/b cip effects are a little sparse:
furystoke giant
siege-gang commander
inferno titan
bone shredder
shriekmaw
huntmaster of the fells
i do wonder if this is the problem though, since these decks have little trouble generating advantage and value.
i also noticed that my green section is a bit hypertrophied, which tends to happen. wotc market research has shown green is by far people's favorite color to play against. so i give the people what they want.
last point: creakwood liege is good! try him!
edit: any other suggestions for effects like skinrender / nekrataal? do people still run flametongue kavu?
edit 2: of course REDCAP. i am dumb (other grixisy possibilities below)
anathemancer
corpse connoisseur
entomber exarch
faceless butcher
desolation angel
fleshbag marauder
gatekeeper of malakir
geralf’s messenger
gloomdrifter
malfegor
niv-mizzet, dracogenius
murderous redcap
plaxmanta
phyrexian rager
puppeteer clique
raven’s familiar
thundermaw hellkite
volcano hellion
so maybe you're right and the jund midrange decks need some more dudes like skinrender and nekrataal. right now the r/b cip effects are a little sparse:
furystoke giant
siege-gang commander
inferno titan
bone shredder
shriekmaw
huntmaster of the fells
i do wonder if this is the problem though, since these decks have little trouble generating advantage and value.
i also noticed that my green section is a bit hypertrophied, which tends to happen. wotc market research has shown green is by far people's favorite color to play against. so i give the people what they want.
last point: creakwood liege is good! try him!
edit: any other suggestions for effects like skinrender / nekrataal? do people still run flametongue kavu?
edit 2: of course REDCAP. i am dumb (other grixisy possibilities below)
anathemancer
corpse connoisseur
entomber exarch
faceless butcher
desolation angel
fleshbag marauder
gatekeeper of malakir
geralf’s messenger
gloomdrifter
malfegor
niv-mizzet, dracogenius
murderous redcap
plaxmanta
phyrexian rager
puppeteer clique
raven’s familiar
thundermaw hellkite
volcano hellion
red akroma and red kahmal are great 6+ threats. Charmbeakers can be quite charming in the right deck, and Bogardan hellkite has quite a lot going for it as well in my opinion.
Flametongue Kavu is fantastic.
I complained about red control being lacking in my own cube over on my thread a week back, too. I've been on Gatherer many, many times searching for the Big Red Fatty that I'm convinced I overlooked, but most times I come away empty-handed. Other than the ubiquitous Inferno Titan, there are precious few cards that would pull me into a red control deck. I toyed with the idea of Wildfire, but was thankfully talked out of it by a couple of people who've already been down that road.
I'm thankful that Gatecrash gave us some red finishers to play with, and in addition to Aurelia, I think the second iteration of Niv-Mizzet might be worthwhile. Is Borborygmos actually cubeable..? The effect seems powerful, but.. I have a tough time evaluating eight drops without having played them. Gisela is another possibility, but it might be that Aurelia already has the giant Boros creature spot on lockdown. If you're willing to consider 3-colour cards as part of the "red finisher suite", Maelstrom Wanderer has been very impressive over here in our camp, and there's always old mainstays Broodmate Dragon and Karrthus.
CML
Contributor
Eric -- curious, why the hate for Wildfire? (I haven't tested it but ...) I think Cube LD is pretty fun. With a low enough curve, even Armageddon turns from game-ruining bullshit into powerful effect that you have to draft around and play around and labor to set up. I like Boom // Bust too.
Other fatties: Bobo is mainly a reanimation target but I can see him working well with other themes I have, viz. ramp, Loam. He might not be good enough but I'm willing to give him another week or two. Wanderer costs freaking 8 too (with yet another color) and must be hard-cast so I'm skeptical. (On the topic of RUG cards, do you guys like Intet and/or Guided Passage?)
The lack of a good mono-red 6-drop is infuriating, but I'm actually pretty happy with the options we have in even two colors now:
rw -- aurelia (gisela at 7+)
ru -- niv-mizzet (call the skybreaker)
rb -- malfegor, sire of insanity
rg -- broodmother, ruric thar
admittedly most of these aren't controlly but whatever it is red after all.
i'm gonna crack some packs and update the list in a bit
Other fatties: Bobo is mainly a reanimation target but I can see him working well with other themes I have, viz. ramp, Loam. He might not be good enough but I'm willing to give him another week or two. Wanderer costs freaking 8 too (with yet another color) and must be hard-cast so I'm skeptical. (On the topic of RUG cards, do you guys like Intet and/or Guided Passage?)
The lack of a good mono-red 6-drop is infuriating, but I'm actually pretty happy with the options we have in even two colors now:
rw -- aurelia (gisela at 7+)
ru -- niv-mizzet (call the skybreaker)
rb -- malfegor, sire of insanity
rg -- broodmother, ruric thar
admittedly most of these aren't controlly but whatever it is red after all.
i'm gonna crack some packs and update the list in a bit
CML
Contributor
updated list: http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/cmls-cube-is-awesome/
i like the 'sort by most recent set' option here and am interested to see what new cards y'all are going to be trying! since i like to try as many as possible as soon as possible, i'm gonna wait on most of the loam theme (incl. mox diamond) 'til next week
i like the 'sort by most recent set' option here and am interested to see what new cards y'all are going to be trying! since i like to try as many as possible as soon as possible, i'm gonna wait on most of the loam theme (incl. mox diamond) 'til next week
Yeah, I should've mentioned that ramp is a heavily supported archetype in my cube - and near the top of the food chain, too - so Maelstrom Wanderer is a lot better here than it would be elsewhere. To be honest, Wanderer only barely counts as a red card in the same way Nicol Bolas is also barely a red card. I haven't tried the other RUG cards you mention, though I'm usually wary of putting in tri-colour 3 cmc cards (e.g. Esper Charm and friends), because they're notoriously tough to cast for us.
Interesting comment about Boom // Bust. We had that in for a while, but nobody really knew what to do with it. Do you guys use it for the Armageddon half? Or is it there for the cascade shenanigans?
On Wildfire, Rob, Jason, and I talked it through over on my thread. I think the main issue is that you want a critical mass of artifact mana in a "Wildfire deck", so that you're coming out ahead on both mana and board position when you blow up the world. With the 8-9 mana rocks I run, they typically get spread out among three or four players, so it's hard to stock up on them for the express purpose of ramping into mass land destruction. Cube designers who actively support Wildfire, like Cooperfauss, seem to require an absurd number of mana rocks - 16 in a 465 cube! - for the deck to be draftable.
Edit:
Oh geez you can sort by latest set! THAT BLEW MY MIND. Always wanted to figure out how many Innistrad block cards I was running, and now I can!
Interesting comment about Boom // Bust. We had that in for a while, but nobody really knew what to do with it. Do you guys use it for the Armageddon half? Or is it there for the cascade shenanigans?
On Wildfire, Rob, Jason, and I talked it through over on my thread. I think the main issue is that you want a critical mass of artifact mana in a "Wildfire deck", so that you're coming out ahead on both mana and board position when you blow up the world. With the 8-9 mana rocks I run, they typically get spread out among three or four players, so it's hard to stock up on them for the express purpose of ramping into mass land destruction. Cube designers who actively support Wildfire, like Cooperfauss, seem to require an absurd number of mana rocks - 16 in a 465 cube! - for the deck to be draftable.
Edit:
Oh geez you can sort by latest set! THAT BLEW MY MIND. Always wanted to figure out how many Innistrad block cards I was running, and now I can!
CML
Contributor
thanks for the link to andy's cube, it looks well-conceived with some blemishes (lol balance and skullclamp, come on dude), as if he were moving from the conventional trash to our ideas, but didn't know how, like a north korean defector who must spend a month in an assimilation camp to learn how to pay bills or something. the paucity of archetypes / pigeonholes in his last page is a little damning. (i like andy, i wouldn't criticize his cube if i didn't respect him or think he could do better)
have you guys tried the rebel errata? i don't see any need because white cards are fine as printed; i remember andy told me once that black was a bad cube color and i found the notion absurd since you can always just balance it yourself.
tappedout has awesome options beyond awesome options!
im gonna not try mirko, mirko is stupid
have you guys tried the rebel errata? i don't see any need because white cards are fine as printed; i remember andy told me once that black was a bad cube color and i found the notion absurd since you can always just balance it yourself.
tappedout has awesome options beyond awesome options!
im gonna not try mirko, mirko is stupid
I have experimented with pushing morph in my cube, to the extent of having Zoetic Cavern in. I've been running Akroma, Angel of Fury as an experiment. I don't like Protection from Color cards generally, but also don't really mind hosing blue if I'm going to run one. It's led to some pretty awesome misdirection--when a game-ender might be hidden under a morph, you have to play differently. And it's really fun with blink effects... Not for most cubes, of course, but it is a red fatty no-one mentions.
I just added Helm of Possession, too. It was fantastic the first draft--has it shown up in your drafts yet?
How has Harm's Way played for you? It's a pet card of mine.
I just added Helm of Possession, too. It was fantastic the first draft--has it shown up in your drafts yet?
How has Harm's Way played for you? It's a pet card of mine.
CML
Contributor
hey tom -- i'm glad you asked about morph, i've been wanting to write this one for awhile. i love morph. morph is just fucking great. it's my second-favorite draft mechanic of all time (after cycling obv). however! finding fun morphs within the context of my cube is difficult to impossible. here are the ones i've considered:
bane of the living
blistering firecat
brine elemental
chromeshell crab
exalted angel
fathom seer
fortune thief
hystrodon
nantuko vigilante
soul collector
thelonite hermit
vesuvan shapeshifter
one of the problems with morph is that it costs a lot of mana. in ols/tsp draft this enables you to sink so it's a perfect mechanic there, in cube though there ought to be better things to do than turning a bro face up. the main offenders here are bane, brine, crab, hystrodon, vigilante, hermit, which leaves:
blistering firecat
exalted angel
fathom seer
fortune thief
soul collector
vesuvan shapeshifter
cat is terrible, the aggro decks aren't burn decks. seer is not powerful enough, there are more flexible draw effects out there. vesuvan shapeshifter is very cool but i'm already stocked up on clones (p. image, metamorph, spitting image, sakashima's student) and five mana is a lot. this leaves:
exalted angel
fortune thief
soul collector
i like these cards a lot. the issue is that morph is (subtly) a parasitic mechanic. like splice or soulshift, it requires a critical mass of cards to work well -- with only three morphs in the cube, the element of surprise and wonder is more or less absent. i could add more cards, but supporting a morph theme isn't worth it. part of good cube design is not supporting themes that need too much support to work with the gestalt.
so that's why i don't have any morphs.
other cards: we haven't drafted with helm yet, i'm excited for it though. effects like that get a bad rap because vedalken shackles is a fucking disaster but when fixed to a reasonable power level they are fun. for example, i've been happy with callous oppressor. (for my conventional control magic effect, i favor sower -- powerful but easy to interact with, easy to get blown out with.) i'm not sure anyone ever drafted harm's way (i also tried faith's shield in that slot). there's a lesson about how all sample sizes are insufficient and cube testing, like brewing, is going to come down to the subjective judgments of you and your playgroup, but i'll go into that somewhere else.
bane of the living
blistering firecat
brine elemental
chromeshell crab
exalted angel
fathom seer
fortune thief
hystrodon
nantuko vigilante
soul collector
thelonite hermit
vesuvan shapeshifter
one of the problems with morph is that it costs a lot of mana. in ols/tsp draft this enables you to sink so it's a perfect mechanic there, in cube though there ought to be better things to do than turning a bro face up. the main offenders here are bane, brine, crab, hystrodon, vigilante, hermit, which leaves:
blistering firecat
exalted angel
fathom seer
fortune thief
soul collector
vesuvan shapeshifter
cat is terrible, the aggro decks aren't burn decks. seer is not powerful enough, there are more flexible draw effects out there. vesuvan shapeshifter is very cool but i'm already stocked up on clones (p. image, metamorph, spitting image, sakashima's student) and five mana is a lot. this leaves:
exalted angel
fortune thief
soul collector
i like these cards a lot. the issue is that morph is (subtly) a parasitic mechanic. like splice or soulshift, it requires a critical mass of cards to work well -- with only three morphs in the cube, the element of surprise and wonder is more or less absent. i could add more cards, but supporting a morph theme isn't worth it. part of good cube design is not supporting themes that need too much support to work with the gestalt.
so that's why i don't have any morphs.
other cards: we haven't drafted with helm yet, i'm excited for it though. effects like that get a bad rap because vedalken shackles is a fucking disaster but when fixed to a reasonable power level they are fun. for example, i've been happy with callous oppressor. (for my conventional control magic effect, i favor sower -- powerful but easy to interact with, easy to get blown out with.) i'm not sure anyone ever drafted harm's way (i also tried faith's shield in that slot). there's a lesson about how all sample sizes are insufficient and cube testing, like brewing, is going to come down to the subjective judgments of you and your playgroup, but i'll go into that somewhere else.
I'll respond more later, but by far my favorite morph is Willbender, and it was missing from your list. If I cut everything else, I'd keep Willbender, Vesuvan Shapeshifter (for the blue morph fakeout), Exalted Angel and Bane of the Living.
Just last week I redirected Sarkhan the Mad's dragonmaking from his creature to Willbender, and won the game. Man, I love that card...
Just last week I redirected Sarkhan the Mad's dragonmaking from his creature to Willbender, and won the game. Man, I love that card...
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Morph is interesting in normal Limited but I'm not a fan of pushing it as a theme in Cube (individual morph cards are obv ok). There will be ~10 max morph cards in the Cube, and it's usually very easy to infer the identity of any given face-down card from the colours the opponent's playing, the circumstances, and so on. I could see a Cube like Jason's that has the Zombie subtheme wanting the mighty Zombie Cutthroat.
I personally avoid all morphs, as too few players actually know what they all are. To new players (to my cube or otherwise), Morph would be a source of frustration rather than strategic depth. With a bunch of veterans I'm sure it'd be different. This is just personal preference really though, I have no concrete objections.
CML
Contributor
yeah, morph (if you do want to include it) is very playgroup dependent in cube (see also: richard garfield, ph.d.) but god was it a great draft mechanic. it elegantly increased the amount of complexity on multiple levels. (level 1 -- what morphs do they have? -- is the obvious one, but level 0 -- should i play my skirk marauder as a piker or wait to grey ogre it and flip it? -- was arguably more important.) at the same time it smoothed out the games without being too overwhelming. kind of like cycling, but not devoid of flavor. (i hope they bring back morph and/or cycling in M14. M13 was great but exalted isn't THAT cool.)
willbender is cool but i doubt its power level is high enough for my cube. i think we tend to remember the times that it made a dragon instead of the times it was squire or gray ogre.
willbender is cool but i doubt its power level is high enough for my cube. i think we tend to remember the times that it made a dragon instead of the times it was squire or gray ogre.
CML
Contributor
wednesday update (i can't for the life of me figure out why my count is a card off and it's really annoying me):
in (15): serra avenger, rot farm skeleton, sewer nemesis, slumbering dragon, firefist striker, varolz, elderscale wurm, hoof, gloomdrifter, death’s shadow, ranger of eos, grand abolisher, wrecking ogre, berserk, tamiyo
out (15): horn of greed, vexing sphinx, woodfall primus, rakdos guildmage, dusk urchins, garruk relentless, eight-and-a-half-tails, coiling oracle, furystoke giant, izzet charm, knight of meadowgrain, terastodon, molten-tail masticore, reckless charge, riftwing cloudskate
[utility lands]
in (2): vesuva, thespian’s stage
out (2): shinka, stalking stones
lands list at the bottom of the original link (http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/cmls-cube-is-awesome/)
in (15): serra avenger, rot farm skeleton, sewer nemesis, slumbering dragon, firefist striker, varolz, elderscale wurm, hoof, gloomdrifter, death’s shadow, ranger of eos, grand abolisher, wrecking ogre, berserk, tamiyo
out (15): horn of greed, vexing sphinx, woodfall primus, rakdos guildmage, dusk urchins, garruk relentless, eight-and-a-half-tails, coiling oracle, furystoke giant, izzet charm, knight of meadowgrain, terastodon, molten-tail masticore, reckless charge, riftwing cloudskate
[utility lands]
in (2): vesuva, thespian’s stage
out (2): shinka, stalking stones
lands list at the bottom of the original link (http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/cmls-cube-is-awesome/)
Oooh, Death's Shadow. Let us know how that one holds up!
Oh, and you have the Ranger of Eos tech going too... hmm... more people should do awesome experimenting.
CML
Contributor
oh gosh you're too kind. as you guys know i love 1's in cube and since i don't want to waste a slot on a savannah lions ever, i've done a number of gatherer searches for every 1-drop dude that fit whatever i was looking for at the time. the pickiness led to some fun discoveries like scute mob, dragonmaster outcast, death's shadow, hedron crab in addition to some old-school bullets like sylvan safekeeper. from there ranger was a natural inclusion, he's the best part of modern martyr's draw engine (i always giggled when i saw people getting nacatls and lavamancers, which is 1/1000th as powerful as ascendant + martyr).
i seem to remember brian kibler had a shards-zendikar standard deck with rangers and scute mobs, maybe? who knows. all i wanna do is give my slumbering dragon +13/+13 for B and then one-shot someone
i seem to remember brian kibler had a shards-zendikar standard deck with rangers and scute mobs, maybe? who knows. all i wanna do is give my slumbering dragon +13/+13 for B and then one-shot someone
Man, I ran Scute Mob in my cube forever, and was mercilessly razzed for it on MTGO. I loved that little dude. Well, swarm of little dudes. Sure, it dies to everything and gets chumped easily, but it is always a gain in tempo.
I think I'll try him again, see how he does in my current cube setup.
I think I'll try him again, see how he does in my current cube setup.
CML
Contributor
in
thornling
malfegor
lightning angel
baneslayer angel
vela the night-clad
battle screech
honor of the pure
call of the herd
tombstalker
devoted caretaker
mistral charger
gore-house chainwalker
chain of smog
greater gargadon
jinxed choker
myr battlesphere
sorin, lord of innistrad
thornling
eight-and-a-half-tails
woodfall primus
grave titan
out
slumbering dragon
boros charm
grand abolisher
hermit druid
planar collapse
savageborn hydra
scroll rack
serra avenger
tracker’s instincts
borborygmos enraged
illusory angel
firespout
mirror entity
smokestack
genesis
kokusho, the evening star
wildfire
elderscale wurm
who/what/when/where/why
sprouting thrinax
master of the wild hunt
thoughts?
thornling
malfegor
lightning angel
baneslayer angel
vela the night-clad
battle screech
honor of the pure
call of the herd
tombstalker
devoted caretaker
mistral charger
gore-house chainwalker
chain of smog
greater gargadon
jinxed choker
myr battlesphere
sorin, lord of innistrad
thornling
eight-and-a-half-tails
woodfall primus
grave titan
out
slumbering dragon
boros charm
grand abolisher
hermit druid
planar collapse
savageborn hydra
scroll rack
serra avenger
tracker’s instincts
borborygmos enraged
illusory angel
firespout
mirror entity
smokestack
genesis
kokusho, the evening star
wildfire
elderscale wurm
who/what/when/where/why
sprouting thrinax
master of the wild hunt
thoughts?