[Design/Construction] Rebuilding my 360...

[Laz]

Man, your cube is basically looking like mine.

Removal, removal, need some removal!

Lets start simple, what are we doubling up on and why? I don't think this is a 4xVolcanic Hammer cube, I think we can afford to be a little faster than that.

Burst Lightning has that sweet modal capability, and looking at the creatures we have added thus far, seems like very solid removal. There are not a lot of x/3s, but a reasonable number of x/4s. Take that Lightning Bolt! We don't even need you! That said, if I find the spells-matter deck needs a bit of a boost, I might need to turn one into a second Firebolt. Tragic Slip is a very interesting card. Aggro decks don't really want it, since it is pretty bad at removing blockers, but slower more grindy decks can get incredible value out of it, and that is without mentioning the sacrifice synergies.

I have to provide some method for handling Gravecrawler and the like, so we need some tuck and exile.

Condemn pairs up with Innocent Blood as 'removal that aggro won't touch', ensuring that our control decks have early interaction. Pillar also brings us to a large number of : 'Deal 2 damage' spells, which is probably important for decks keen on running Pyromancer.

A pair of Oblivion Rings and a Bonds of Faith rounds out White's removal. Bonds is an interesting card that I have had on my radar since looking into Humans a while back. I really want to test it out, but it might prove less successful than something like Pacifism or Path to Exile. O.Ring is just good.

How about some free removal, for keeping everyone honest? Not free, but lets just say 'You don't pay for it with money...'

To be honest, I have never seen anyone aim a Fireblast at anything other than another player's face, but it could remove a creature I guess. I have run Slaughter Pact before, and think it is interesting, but these cards certainly have a greater tension to them.

I am not sure just how dense I want the rest of the spot removal, but at this stage, here is a first pass.
Red:
- Magma Jet
- Mizzium Mortars
- Brimstone Volley (Added in the sac. package)

I am tempted to add something like Devil's Play, but I am starting to feel a little slot constrained in Red, and the above cards perhaps offer more.

Black:
- Doom Blade
- Go for the Throat
- Hero's Downfall
- Chainer's Edict (Added in the graveyard package)

Simple no-nonsense removal. Perhaps Ultimate Price could warrant inclusion if this is a little light-on (or heaven forbid, I could break singleton!).

Mass removal is also something I am thinking about at the moment, I am not thinking anything too far out of the ordinary, although assuming I had space for a single, red, damage-based mass removal (In addition to Mizzium Mortars and the two Wildfire), what should I go with? Pyroclasm? Anger of the Gods? Firespout? Blasphemous Act?!
Should I desperately look for an extra slot?

 

[Laz]

Whoops! Forgot my two-colour removal. I already have Putrefy as some bonus anti-artifact interaction.

The following join it:


I like the split cards, they often can generate really solid value, and Dreadbore pairs with Hero's Downfall and all of the burn to keep Planeswalkers from feeling safe.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

If you are fireblasting a creature you are probably losing. Looks like red removal might struggle with 3+ toughness (almost everything you have listed deals two). If you're adding another red sweeper, probably anger of the gods, as you reference gravecrawler.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Flame Slash solves all of life's problems.

Well, not all of them, but if you are going to run stuff like Hero of Bladehold, you should probably have Flame Slash around. Anger of the Gods is also probably a good suggestion.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah I kinda err towards more grave-hating removal.

I'm currently doubling up on anger of the gods rather than Anger + slagstorm. Gravecrawler decks can get stupid

 

[Laz]

I do so want to run Flame Slash, but so much removal!


I could just add it, I do indeed love early interaction.

The issue is that I am starting to run out of slots in Red. With that said, I can justify running more Red/Black/White cards than Blue/Green. This deviates a lot from traditional cube thinking, but the reality of drafting is that people are very willing to splash the former, mostly for removal. The latter are almost always primary colours (asides from splashing Rancor, which happens a lot. That card is really good!). If you are in Blue for control, you tend to be wanting to run cards that cost and a lot, likewise, Green tends to take a more ramp-y approach, which requires lots of early green mana, which forces your mana-base to heavily favour turn 1 access to . Since you are made to run so much green mana, decks tend to feature green cards heavily, as opposed to on the splash.

Tada! Flame Slash justified!

 

[Laz]

Finished off Red with a pair of walkers....
- Koth of the Hammer
- Chandra, Pyromaster

I also had to take out Legion Loyalist, since it seemed one of the weakest cards to support the token theme. I ended up with a cube-tutor listed 47 Red cards, which is a little above the ~44-45 cards I budgeted for. Also, the 47 is a lie, it is much closer to 49.5 with the 4-hybrid one drops (Figure of Destiny and Rakdos Cackler) and Murderous Redcap. 5 cards over? Probably too many, even with the above justification. Then again, lets see what other colours look like before we start making cuts.

 

[Laz]

Following on from our spot-removal, we need some mass removal. While I feel the density of point removal is good, too much of it can be snapped up by aggressive decks to really dampen them too much. Sometimes we need some 'Destroy all creatures'-action to keep aggressive decks on their toes.

I already threw Anger of the Gods in with the last lot of removal, and that might be enough for Red (NOTE TO SELF: Revisit this assessment!). White and Black are the other obvious colours that still need mass removal.

I am not convinced Supreme Verdict should be here. I want control decks to be more flexible with their colours, and I don't know if wasting an Azorius slot on what is essentially the same as Day of Judgment except against some strange creature/counterspell heavy concoction (which sounds like it probably needs every bit of help it can get...). This could very easily be a second Day of Judgment or the classic Wrath of God (which I am not running because I happen to own a few Day of Judgments, but no Wraths, and I am not running Thrun, who is the biggest Regeneration offender I know...).

Rout and Terminus have fun roles. The potential instant-speed nature of Rout (not to mention its recent sexy modern-border printing...) makes it worth the 1-mana premium over a typical Wrath, but if it turns out that aggro decks are so fast that decks have to Wrath turn 4 or die, I might need to reconsider this assessment. Terminus + Brainstorm, enough said, though I will say more. Handling Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, death triggers, cards that count creatures in yard, etc neatly is awesome. Almost awesome enough to make me think about Hallowed Burial, though I would probably run a second Terminus before I did that.

Damnation and Toxic Deluge are sweet... Black deserves this effect.

I am also going to single out this new card:

Could be sweet... Could be very sweet...

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

That all seems good. I agree with you about supreme verdict. I wonder if the three white effects are too much already but see how you get on. Re red, don't forget you have crater hellion too.

 

[Laz]

...you have crater hellion too.

Woooo! Team Hellion!

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

You also have the two wildfires, so red looks pretty decent as far as mass removal goes. Maybe have a blasphemous act on standby, or if you wanted to mix it up and run a slightly weaker card that stays on pace with the "red creature ETB mass removal" theme, there is wildfire cerberus.

Maybe consider merciless eviction over supreme verdict? Its more color flexible and requires more decisions.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I support x2 Damnnation

 

[Laz]

I support x2 Damnnation

Double Damnation over Damnation + Toxic Deluge, or in addition to Toxic Deluge?

 

[Laz]

Ok, Green can't be that hard right? (Disclaimer: I have tried 3 different approaches for Green thus far in my current cube, and I still haven't got it feeling right.) I suppose there is no harm in going reasonably generic, provided we acknowledge that there are other themes in the cube.

I already have a reasonable number of cards which play nicely with the graveyard theme, as well as a number of cards that interact with artifacts (mostly by blowing them up...). It is worth noting that there are three Pods in Green, which can can supplement with the following:

These creature tutors allow for us to add a few 'silver bullet' creatures, and should probably emphasis 'creatures as spells'. Some wise guy once wrote a excessively long polemic, which seemed in insinuate there was some value to be derived from double GSZ. If this were a 450 cube, I would probably go with the second GSZ, but the flexibility of Worldly Tutor to get non-green creatures is desirable here, where I don't have as many green and gold slots. Plus, we can combine Worldy Tutor a little bit with a Brainstorm-centric, top-of-deck theme. Lets focus on this theme for a second, there are a few Green-ish cards which really care about being able to control the top of your deck.

Aside: Gamekeeper is one of my favourite Green cards, and I am so happy to see it in a Modern card frame for the first time. It is a great 4-drop for Birthing Pod, plays with the sacrifice theme, rewards you for controlling the top of your deck, all around awesome. These, combined with Mirri's Guile and maybe Sylvan Library, provides Green with an angle which has a lot of meaningful decisions, which harks back to our original cube mission statement.

We deviated a little from the 'silver-bullets' creature line there, but coming back to it, we already have some of the larger ones, in Wickerbough Elder and Acidic Slime in the list as anti-artifact cards. I feel reasonably ok about adding Viridian Shaman, even though it is lower on the main-deckability scale, but will be eager to replace it with the 'artifact or enchantment' elf coming in M15. Stingerfling Spider and Arbor Colossus are reasonable cards for swatting flyers.

Going back to more generic Green-notes, I am obviously going to need some number of mana-elves. In a previous post, I put double Noble Hierarch up as the base for this. They are very far above the curve for a mana creature (Though Deathrite Shaman probably takes that crown), so is a difficult act to follow up. I was considering replacing a Hierarch with an Avacyn's Pilgrim, who has the same 'I am a Human who makes '-vibe, but it feels like a poor facsimile, and I have no real reason not to just run two Hierarchs. Five Elves is probably a reasonable number, and if we include Deathrite, the line-up probably looks like this:

That last Magic card back isn't a typo, I literally just typed 'something else', because I don't know what fits in here yet. Joraga Treespeaker is an option, as is a second Birds, or even just a more traditional Llanowar Elves or something. Another 1-drop ramp option I am going to include is Search for Tomorrow, because that card is sweet (and doesn't die to you know... everything).

The next question is how heavily to support aggro with Green. I am planning to give notional support, and cards like Scavenging Ooze are better beaters than they are given credit for. A single Nacatl and a Rancor, along with some mid-rangey-esque support cards for aggro, such as Slaughterhorn and Briarhorn are hopefully enough to lure players. Ghor-clan Rampager, Bloodbraid Elf help Gruul colours a lot, thought supporting Selesnya aggro is less easy. Qasali Pridemage isn't the worst card, and double Dryad Militant makes it easier to dabble in green, so it might occur.

Obviously this is only the start of a Green section, but at least I am on the way now.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

If you want to boost green aggro, I know Eric has been saying that triple experiment one pretty much made the archetype for him. Might be something to consider. For the 5th elf, I would probably run Avacyn's pilgram, for all of the reasons you've stated.

If you want to support ramp, green aggro, and the top-of-library theme, Mul Daya Channelers is a really great addition. Scorned Village is another great card that can fill both roles as a beater and ramper, and is a human.

This is probably going to be one of those things that depends on the cube, but I always had problems getting nactl through the drafting process and into someones deck. Similarly, neither rancor nor briarhorn ever did anything here. I really like cascade--and it was a fun mechanic for us-- but it was never what I would call good. I had two bloodbraid elves in my old cube for a long time, and they were pretty forgetable. The R/G decks were never really interested in splashing blue for brainstorm, which meant they were just hitting random nonsense off of the cascades. We ran a single sylvan library, and that was not enough density of that effect to make it work--not only does it have to show up in the draft and get into the right deck, but it has to be drawn in the correct order.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I have a hard time believing that Rancor never did anything. Its probably the #1 card in my cube (By which I mean if I had first pick in a roto draft of my cube, I'd probably take rancor), though obviously my cube is very slanted in this department its still pretty good in Grim Monolith cubes.

For luring people into Green Aggro in addition to the cards you mentioned, Strangleroot Geist absolutely amazing and will definitely draw me in that direction. Young Wolf has also been surprisingly good that works similarly to doomed traveler (also good with bombardment/double carrion feeder). Lastly with your double Young Pyromancer, consider running Prey's Vengeance as its a solid aggro trick that triggers it twice.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I have a hard time believing that Rancor never did anything. Its probably the #1 card in my cube (By which I mean if I had first pick in a roto draft of my cube, I'd probably take rancor), though obviously my cube is very slanted in this department its still pretty good in Grim Monolith cubes.

Yeah, it surprised me too. I think it was mostly because I never really pushed green aggro, so the colorless equipment was better in a lot of decks. When most of your 1cc beaters are red or white, going turn 1 red/white dude, turn 2 bonespliter, equip, than attack is going to be more consistant a lot of times. Even strangleroot geist never did much over here because of the GG cost, which probably says something about the quality of my green aggro decks lol.

Most of the midrange decks had no real interest in creature buffs, because their guys were large enough already for the meta, and their elves were supposed to be powering out bigger threats, not beating for 3. Boon satyr, an excellent card in a lot of people's cubes, did nothing here for that reason.

I also do think that removal played a big roll in this as well. For a long time my removal suite was really too good, and that lowers the value of all creature buffs across the board. When you combine that with a lack of demand for green aggro in the first place, it puts rancor in an awkward spot. Still a decent card, but cutable.

In retrospect I should have been running the triple experiment one, but oh well.

 

[Laz]

I am not really thinking of Green as a base colour for aggro, rather a splash colour. I want to provide small incentives for Red, White or Black based aggro decks to dabble in Green by giving them some more aggressive-leaning mid-rangey cards. Rancor is a sweet card when put on both a Champion of the Parish and a Polukranos, World Eater, and Bloodbraid Elf is fine whether it is cascading into Hellspark Elemental or Ramp/Removal/Discard etc.
Grillo, I found your cube on cubetutor, and it looks like you are not running as much fixing as I am (45/400 as opposed to 53/360 (Note to self: update list to reflect these plans)), in addition to more CIPT lands. I suspect this difference in mana-bases affords aggro decks a bit of an easier time splashing for a couple of cards with in the cost. At the same time, I am hesitant to add Strangleroot Geist, despite its obvious strength, since stretches things a lot more, and is a little bit of a trap when I am not providing explicit support to the archetype.

You are probably right about Bloodbraid Elf decks not splashing for Brainstorm, though I have Shardless Agent on the list. I almost certainly need some redundancy in top-of-deck effects. I suspect Noxious Revival will sneak in as well, and hopefully between that, Mirri's Guile, Worldly Tutor and perhaps Sylvan Library, the seed of interaction will be planted.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Grillo, I found your cube on cubetutor, and it looks like you are not running as much fixing as I am (45/400 as opposed to 53/360 (Note to self: update list to reflect these plans)), in addition to more CIPT lands. I suspect this difference in mana-bases affords aggro decks a bit of an easier time splashing for a couple of cards with in the cost.

Just to avoid confusion (too late for that), we use the CIPT guildgates as proxies for shocks. When I originally put that list up on cube tutor, I uploaded the excel file without giving it much thought. Since I no longer use that list, I've never gone back and cut out the guildgates to replace them with shocklands.

But on a less awkward topic, I like the density of top-of-deck effects. Mwonvuli Beast Tracker is something else to consider in that theme, if you end up with enough relevant keyword creatures for him.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Double Damnation over Damnation + Toxic Deluge, or in addition to Toxic Deluge?

I run in addition to, but I'm at 450.

 

[Laz]

Lets step away from Green for a moment and go back to finish off White (which needs 4-6 more cards).

As part of supporting Red tokens in White, I made one major omission.

I have so many White three-drops, but this one acts as enough of an engine card to warrant inclusion. I might need to find a two-drop or two to make the curve look a little more healthy, but I have enough slots left to do this. White is very creature heavy at the moment, and I wasn't sure I wanted it to be this way, but I don't really regret ending up here. For two-drops, I am thinking I might try Kor Skyfisher, with Syndic of Tithes or Fencing Ace as a backup to try if it doesn't work out.
Also, as a sweet combo, I am going to add Spectral Procession.

White needs some faces (read planeswalkers), and my normal go-to card would be Ajani Goldmane. The issue is that I honestly don't think he provides many meaningful decisions. While I have seen players gain life with him, that seems so weak compared to just -1'ing him until he dies.
I am instead, in the spirit of interesting decisions, thinking of trying out medium Elspeth and little Ajani.

Elspeth strikes me as an interesting card which doesn't have any obvious sequences. Sometimes the ultimate will be insane and win you the game, other times, it will lose it for you. Sometimes you have to kill her to make Soldiers, other times you will bounce between +2 and -2 until you stabilise the board. She seems suitably powerful while being non-oppressive. Ajani also looks like a card with interesting decisions. I haven't cubed with him before, and will be interested to see the types of decks into which he fits. Presumably he beats down pretty well, providing some reach to aggro/midrange decks.

 

[Laz]

Also adding a final cycle of lands (in addition to the 2x Fetches, Shocks, ABU Duals). Simple stuff here, Fast/Painlands for more aggressive colour combinations, Buddy-lands for the less aggressive ones. I know that I shouldn't let my preconceptions here shape how people utilise colours to build decks, and if people want to play UW aggro, I should let them, etc... It is not like I am making a choice to run Azorius Chancery over Seachrome Coast though, buddy-lands still come untapped most of the time! This is especially with so many fetchable duals.

Fastlands:
Red-Green
Green-White
Red-Black

Painlands:
Red-White

Buddy:
Blue-White
Blue-Green
Blue-Red
Blue-Black
Green-Black
Black-White

Supplementing these are triple Wasteland and 3-pieces of 5-colour fixing, City of Brass and 2x Basic Fetchlands (Read: , Pay 1 life, sacrifice ~: Search your library for a basic land card and put that card onto the battlefield. Shuffle your library.)

 

[Chris Taylor]

Woo Brass Cave lives again!

 

[Laz]

Woo Brass Cave lives again!

Mine is Worldweave.

Card is powerful, but probably not too powerful to see actual print. I mean it might be superior to normal fetches in some 3-colour decks in Modern, and may be legacy playable for certain specific decks, but definitely not game breaking.

 

[Laz]

Green has some capability to play off of the sacrifice themes (which crosses over nicely with Pod), and with the addition of a Sundering Growth, I want to throw Green a bit of a token bone. Brindle Shoat, whom I discovered from Alfonzo before (Thanks!) seems like a shoe in. I mean, look at this little guy...

I can see him being played in a whole lot of different decks, from being used as a good blocker, a two-drop for Pod, a 3-power attacker after being sacrificed for the greater good, etc.

Since I suspect that I am going to have no shortage of Green five-drops, I am going to give Garruk, Primal Hunter a rest and run his smaller versions.

Both are interesting cards, and Punch-Garruk's darker alter-ego is a very sweet sac-outlet, with some cool graveyard synergies.
On the note of graveyard synergies, I feel I want some more methods for filling the yard in Green. Life from the Loam is all well and good, but I feel it can be supplemented. I am a little concerned that most cards I could run here could feel very poisonous. For instance, the Sylvan Ranger I run at the moment as a two-drop could easily become Satyr Wayfinder, though despite being functionally similar most of the time, the latter one looks like it is only for the 'graveyard-deck' when you see it in the draft. Tracker's Instinct is a possibility, but I would prefer a creature. Perhaps Golgari Brownscale? I am going to try out Ghoultree, simply because it is the only mono-green zombie, but I don't hold high hopes for the card.

Beyond this, I am going to fall back on running some generically strong cards. Polukranos, Prime-time, Thraggles, etc. In concert, I will support Ramp as a tactic, with sweet Craterhoof as the top-end target. I might also keep Tooth and Nail as a ramp target, because I feel it represents a solid pure-ramp-target (In that is it not able to be reanimated), but it will be with a grain of salt. Kodama's Reach, Sakura-tribe Elder, Farseek, Wood Elves round out the rest of the ramp effects, with the potential to add Viridian Emissary should I need to bolster the numbers a little.

As I said, I don't know enough about how to make green interesting, so I will simply make it functional, and cross pollinate it with the rest of the archetypes, then hope my drafters who care about playing green tell me what they like and hate...