[Design/Construction] Rebuilding my 360...

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
People don't ever take it here :( I suppose it looks bad / slow on the surface? I'm gonna leave it in for a while longer, but I suspect that the advent of the planeswalker has made expensive cards with activated costs like this obsolete.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
So, I was looking for cards with CC 7 or greater that might be fun reanimation/tinker/ramp targets. Without knowing your removal suite, the short list I came up with was:

.

Spine would probably be way too slow for what you are looking to do, but otherwise looks like a perfect utility card. Myr Battlesphere might be too powerful, but I could see Bosh and Memnarch potentially being good. Bosh is a bit more narrow since he is essentially an artifact ramp card that wants to eat his ramping artifacts. Memnarch looks like something a control player might be willing to run as a finisher, but also want to sacrifice a mana rock to rush it out as a blocker against an aggresive deck.

After playing with molten-tail masticore some more last night, I think I like the masticores in this archetype. Tinker and trash give you a way to shut them off while extracting some value for doing so. They also are a discard outlet for trash, and not horrible/unfun cards to tinker into play. Molten-tail can also eat some of the targets you sacrifice to either card. In general, they seem to have good overlap with the sacrifice and graveyard themes you want present in the rest of the cube, and aren’t too slow for an aggro environment. The discard from them also means the pilot has to be active with them, and can't just sit behind a mid-range wall blocking the aggro player.

If you want to movetrash for treasure's artifact reanimation theme into some other colors, you could look at:

 

Laz

Developer
Wow, I really appreciate the thought that you are putting into this guys. Argivian Restoration and Beacon of Unrest should definitely be on my radar. I will add a Masticore or two as well. Any preferences? I was thinking Razormane and Molten-Tail.

If you check the cube tutor link, you will see I added a number of general purpose artifacts to increase the density. Now however I want to move onto mana-rocks. These things are in high demand, but I want to support a Wildfire archetype, so I need a certain density (we will worry about aggro fighting through this environment at a later stage). I am not sure where the sweet spot is, but I am going to start with 12 and see what happens from there.

Lets start with ones that can kill the opponent:

These are the best of the cycle, although it is unfortunate that only one produces {R}. I can't bring myself to force the 1/1 double striker one on my drafters. Foriysian Totem also kills people pretty effectively (albeit expensively), and taps for {R}, so it might make this first cut.

3-mana is a lot to pay for a rock, but I feel that the above ones provide enough value in longer games to be worthwhile. They have definitely seen a lot of play in my cube's current incarnation, though it is, at present, a little slow.
2-mana rocks are a different ball game, due to that habit of wizards to 'print everything sweet at 4CMC'. It is interesting that 3-mana rocks need to provide big value outside of tapping for mana, while 2-mana rocks need limiting due to this feature(/bug).

Doubling up on Mind Stone, here. It was a Cluestone before they were cool. Sphere of the Suns was called out earlier for its interaction with Tinker/artifact sacrifice themes, so I could double up there as well, but I am content to keep to one for now. Past these though I am not sure what I want to run. I have slots for 4 more 2-drop mana-rocks, and they will likely come from the following group:
Singleton special: Fire Diamond
Don't be greedy with you manabase: Star Compass
Hope the opponent is greedy with their manabase: Fellwar Stone
I love bears: Guardian Idol
I prefer these over Signets: Talisman cycle
Not a real mana-rock: Pentad Prism
Or just double up on some of the above?
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I think you are right to run razormane and molten-tail: original masticore is probably too low power. Lodestone golem might be another good choice, because its another creature you might want to tinker in for utility purposes, but also want to shut off with a sacrifice effect.

Part of the mana rock puzzle, of course, is going to be whether you need more ramping or fixing.

I really like fellwar stone and star compass here, because it seems like they could lead to some interesting choices if a wildfire resolves. Pentad prisim seems good for the same reasons sphere of the suns is good. My instinct is you would probably be fine with the talismans, pentad prism, fellwar stone, star compass, sphere of the suns and coldsteel heart, as your 2CC rocks. I like mindstone, but if you are focused on color fixing, I don't think you need two of them, or maybe even one of them--not sure there.

If you are going to run cards like bitterblossom, underworld connections or phyrexian arena, maybe consider pristine talisman? I think coalition relic should be on the radar for 3cc rocks, as it is both a powerful fixer and ramp card. Running that alongside the 3 keyrunes would probably be fine, I would imagine.

Looking at your list I would cut winter orb, and I think you should at least keep an eye on it if you do not. I ran it originally as an aggro enabler--and i'm guessing you are running it both as a tinker target and something to sacrifice to tinker--but it is just very abusable with mana rocks. What would happen here is a midrange player would draft the orb and than proceed to draft as many mana rocks as possible. Than they could play out a perfectly normal midrange game of 3-5 CC threats, while everyone else was under the orb--it was the most miserable, degenerate thing you could play against. They could even combine it with wildfire.
 
I suspect selesyna keyrune may be one that is unlikely to be played? It's a nice opportunity to play forysian totem, so I would give it a go. If you don't mind the 3cc rocks, I have one that should be right up your street:



Could be a good double up?

I love spine of ish whatever, would be cool if you could fit it in. Some other tinker targets you might want to consider:



I know these aren't mana rocks, but they're cool to sac to tinker:

 

Laz

Developer
Thanks for the feedback. Additions look as follows.

The simple ones:




The mana rock suite is a more complex proposition. I initially was sceptical of Star Compass and Fellwar Stone specifically because of the interesting tension they create after casting Wildfire. I think you have it right Grillo, and that is actually an interesting dynamic, in that often Wildfire will also turn your mana rocks off, at least temporarily. It is certainly something to keep in mind. I think I will go with the following, at least for now:

Ok, those might require some explaining... Firstly, I know there are only 11 there, but 12 was a shot in the dark anyway. Some of the 2 CMC, and all of the 3 CMC rocks are the same, but the set of Talisman of Indulgence, Izzet Signet and Boros Signet probably stand out. This is mostly an attempt to supplement Wildfire strategies, but also an attempt to buff control combinations which include red, since I find Esper is just far too prevalent compared to say Grixis or UWR.

On the topic of Winter Orb, you are probably right. It is a sweet card in my current cube, but I suspect that is because I play no where near this number of mana-rocks, so the 4-5 mana versus 1 mana per turn dynamic never really comes up, and it instead functions more like Tangle Wire or in extreme cases, Armageddon.
 

Laz

Developer
Thus far we have added two different sets of cards to support a few different archetypes. These two sets of cards are cards which care about the graveyard, as well as a large number of artifact cards. Both of these strategies have specific sets of cards which prey upon them, and I am all for promoting interaction in this space. There are issues here, in that very potent hate cards exist for these types of strategies, but they are very narrow. A good example of a card like this is Relic of Progenitus. Yes, it hates out graveyard interactions really effectively, and it cycles in worst case, so you would imagine that would be the perfect sort of card, as even if the opponent isn't touching the yard, it doesn't cost a card. That sort of thinking is focussed solely upon in game dynamics and ignoring the draft dynamics. The draft dynamics of Relic are horrible. Somewhere after 10th pick, someone will grab Relic because 'at least it cycles', and it will randomly hose a graveyard deck. Alternately, the graveyard deck will see the Relic wheel and take it because it hates out the deck they are building. This really diminishes the value of the draft 'sub-game'. Instead, cards should be playable, and pickable on their own merits, where they don't randomly hose whole decks, but enable appropriate interaction with these alternate archetypes.

Graveyard interaction is reasonably simple, as a number of solid cards have been printed in recent times which can treat either graveyard as a resource, which allows for both positive interaction with the cards which help to fill the yard, but also with the opponent's cards which utilise cards in their yards. The following are the two best examples:

As this cube is quite heavy on graveyard interactions, two of each seem very appropriate.

There are also some older cards with interesting interactions with the graveyard.

I love Stonecloaker, it is a card that provides a lot of interesting interactions. I haven't played with Jötun Grunt before, but I am interested to give it a shot, so one of each will be fine.

There are definitely some more heavy-handed options, such as Angel of Finality and Loaming Shaman, which have appropriate stats for their mana costs, and attack the yard. They are options, but the above cards will probably be the only dedicated interaction. I think this is probably fine, as in terms of non-creature graveyard play, the yard mostly provides incremental value, and creature based issues can be dealt with increasing the amount of removal that exiles or puts the card back into the library.
As an aside, Primal Command can also provide some graveyard interaction in a pinch.


Artifact interaction is slightly more difficult, as I cannot simply hand wave the problem while murmuring something about 'solve with creature removal'. Artifact interaction is far more awkward than graveyard interaction because sometimes the opponent won't have artifacts, while cards tend to end up in graveyards with startling regularity. Thus, there is even more emphasis on artifact interaction being good in its own right, worth playing in the maindeck.

As artifacts are not always going to be played (despite the density I am running), decent playable artifact interaction often needs to be incidental, i.e. you are playing the card to do something else, and it just so happens that an artifact is more threatening than the other thing you wanted to do, so you use the artifact mode. The best example of this is simply Putrefy.
This is a card you play to kill creatures. When they happen to play an artifact which is scarier than their creatures, you kill the artifact. There are a few more obvious cards like this:

Normally these will be played to kill a land, creature, or planeswalker but when they happen to hit a troublesome artifact, that is pretty awesome too. I have had some success with Bramblecrush in the past, but I think that might be a smidgeon too slow (he says right after posting a picture of the 5CMC Acidic Slime...).

Past these you are looking towards general value creatures which happen to be able to destroy artifacts.

Take your choice of Reckless Reveler and Torch Fiend, I prefer the art on the Satyr, but boy is the flavour text horrible. Red is really burdened by its cheap artifact hating creature compare to white's enchantment hating ones, but I don't see this changing anytime soon. I am still not sure on numbers for the above, but with the number of artifacts I am running, I know I will be doubling up on some.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I've been experimenting with a lot of graveyard themes and gy hate, and I dislike the affect relic and rakdos charm have both on the draft and in actual gameplay, for the reasons you already pointed to. Ooze as a card is reasonable, but I’m not sure I would double up on deathrite. That card is pretty much an automatic p1p1 over here, which I dislike. A turn 1 deathrite can also be pretty hard for a graveyard deck to beat unless they have some immediate way to kill it.

Stonecloaker's value as a card tends to go down the faster your format is. I really like jotun grunt, but the draft dynamics for it tend to not be that dissimilar from relic--they are both anti-graveyard sideboard cards that wheel, the big difference is that grunt isn't a "hate draft on sight" card. Samurai of the pale curtain is an option, but I dislike the double white. Dryad Militant has been reasonable over here. Aggro will run it and it has an incidental impact on the yard.

I do like this spell for gy hate:


It has a real effect, doesn’t just blow out an opponent, and can reasonably be played around.

Another thing that has been surprisingly effective for us has been the following spells:


They've been steadily moving up the pick order. Right now they pull triple duty as graveyard hate, a way to shuffle your own library, and disruption by forcing the opponent to shuffle away cards on the top of their library. They add a lot of tension to casting cards like vampiric tutor or lim-dul's vault: kind of like how stifle->fetchland would feel in legacy, as I understand it.

Edit: I probably wouldn't run primal command at all, almost every card that completly wipes a graveyard is going to be a big "feel bad" for the gy player. The only exception I can think of is necromancer's covenant, and a lot of that has to do with the CC, the color combination, and the fact that the graveyard decks want to run it themselves.
 

Laz

Developer
I feel I may have done myself a disservice in using the term 'graveyard deck'. Looking at the cards I have added, I think the closest that I have to a deck that truly depends on the graveyard is probably the Gravecrawler/Bloodghast deck and maybe Life from the Loam shenanigans. (Sidenote: Mis-typed Gravecrawler as Bravecrawler, was not disappointed) Everything else probably doesn't care about more than one or two cards in the yard, so a complete wipe is not going to do as much 'random hosing' as I was perhaps concerned about. This initially started as a way to provide more options, not to create core graveyard engines. If someone cannot flash back their Chainer's Edict or gets a Bloodghast/Trading Post interaction broken up I don't think it will be particularly crippling.
 

Laz

Developer
**EDIT** DISREGARD WHAT I SAY ABOUT RED IN THIS POST. I decided to be less generic, and tweaked a lot of things later.

Bam! Let us take this cube up a notch! Everything we have added thus far is pretty slow and grindy. We have even added that great oppressor of aggro, mana rocks. I guess we are going to need some pretty decent aggressive cards to fix this then...

Taking a lesson from the Scuttle-cube, which has the potential to be very aggressive, lets start with two of each of the following guys:

Rigid card classification is really holding these cards back in more typical cubes. 'Oh... I can't play Dryad Militant, there is no room in my carefully calculated 3.6 card Selesnya section...' Screw that! This is a 1-drop that you can play if you are playing an aggressive deck which has even a remote chance of untapped turn 1 Green or White mana. I often find myself in a near-mono-Red deck, splashing both green and white and will still play Dryad Militant, hybrid mana just makes it that easy. These three cards (along with the ugly step-sibling Tattermunge Maniac) forgive a lot of sins and are aggro filler of a most excellent kind. Incidental graveyard hate is a mere bonus.

Following up with more one and two-drops, black is mostly done (2 Bloodghast, 4 Gravecrawlers will do that), but Red and White still need plenty more cards. I am looking to push a Human theme here (which will shape some future choices of grid filling cards), so lets start with the following 1-drops.
White:
Elite Vanguard could be Solider of the Pantheon, but I like saving that fun for Scuttle-cube (where Soldier is insane, and easily first pick-able for virtually any type of deck... 64 multi-colour creatures combined with colour changing fun does that.), here it just randomly is able to block things and there is no 'Your creature is now WURBG' shenanigans. Double Champion of the Parish seems like a solid anchor for the theme. Mom and Gideon's Lawkeeper are not strictly aggro cards, but they are excellent at forcing through damage. Doomed Traveler is something of a black sheep, but does serve as an excellent blocker for slower decks, fodder for sacrifice decks, etc. Student of Warfare is an option if I feel I need more 1-drops.

Red:
Looking at that, I feel I should add one or two more cards, but I feel a lot of the strength of red aggro actually comes at the two-drop level, so I am not too concerned. Stromkirk Noble is some sweet anti-Human tech, though Reckless Waif got the nod precisely for being a Human. Stonewright is an option for another Human 1-drop, and Goblin Guide is conspicuous in its absence (I don't really want to buy one).

Onto twos!

Red first this time around:

White:

Look at all of those Humans! An almost disturbingly large number. Perhaps I should be less conscious of what I am doing? Stoneforge isn't a true aggro card, but can certainly do terrifying things in aggro decks (like fetch up Grafted Wargear...). It also crosses over nicely with aspects of the Tinker theme we added, such as fetching Tatsumasa or Elbrus (All of the best swords have names...).

Finally, lets round out the Human theme with a simple pair of cards.


Hang around for the next installment, where we top out our aggro curves, add some reach, and give green some more aggro-supporting cards! Unless of course I get distracted and you know... forget to do those things.
 

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I guess if you run a lot of 0/4 walls. Otherwise, he trades with or eats most creatures in the two-mana range, no?
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I guess if you run a lot of 0/4 walls. Otherwise, he trades with or eats most creatures in the two-mana range, no?

getting blanked by walls is one thing, but I don't actually think R1, 2 damage, someone discards a card is that great.

He's really lackluster if people are willing to block
 

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
He's really lackluster if people are willing to block

Strongly disagree.

Eating a blocker so that the rest of the small hasty red dudes can get through is just fine by me.

Think of him as a 3/1 that deals an extra two damage, if you're so uncomfortable with having him blocked. That puts him well above Daring Skyjek, in my book.
 
If you run stuff like Kor Skyfisher and other blink, Marauder can be the biggest asshole on the planet.
 
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