[Design/Construction] The Bleed Cube

[Grillo_Parlante]

This is probably the worst idea ever, but the posts in Turillazzo's thread got me thinking what a cube built around painlands would look like.

I have the shell here, just with the lands, as it occured to me that there was just too many creative angles to approach. This almost feels like a reinvention of the game.

Basically, life would actually become an important commodity: a finite resource that would have to be carefully leveraged out in order to create the game's tempo. There becomes a real tension between life gain as fuel, and life loss as translated into action.

This means a few things:

1. Even fairly blase life gain cards become playable, and good life gain cards become insane. Stream of life is a card, and soul warden becomes a real engine. Blood artist becomes an absolute mythic bomb (maybe broken).

2. Its traditionally been difficult to include fun prison archetypes in cube, as the sort of resource denial WOTZ traditionally produced just shut people out of the game, and they have not printed prison cards since. However, when the resource being chocked away is raw life points, this really expands the pool of possible cards, and opens up the entire NWO pool. Pingers, for example, could suddenly go from being fringe playable cards, to being part of a unique resource denial strategy.

This is a chance to reinvent the prison archetype without new printings or custom cards, challenge the player to rethink the nature of the game, as well as reevaluate cards in an entirely new light.

3. Aggro disruption/aggro control/pressure control/tempo/insert other moniker here decks also come to the fore, as the implications of life loss in the format gives every aggro deck native disruptive tools.

4. Do you guys remember hand discard strategies? The old rack based decks from the 1990s. Well, these suddenly seem much better, as discard provides pressure to play into a damaging mana base. The rack itself becomes much better when its incrimental damage is being augmented by the mana base.

5. There are also some interesting mechanics that interact with pain lands: bloodthirst, fateful hour--cards or mechanics that care about damage taken in a turn. Mirror Universe!!!!!!

6. House mana burn rule always in effect.

 

[Turillazzo]

This is...beyond. I dunno, a cube based around mana denial sounds like unfun magic, yet it probably sounds like a fun "some other game". Isn't this similar to the Desert Cube in many ways?
Also, Children of Korlis.

edit: oh and I suggest to call this Emophily Cube.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Well, not so much resource denial as adding a resource to the game. I never played the desert cube; did not like the fixing.

 

[Kirblinx]

Seems like an interesting idea, but I wouldn't think it would be that much of an influence (the incremental damage). From the land base you have there would be an average of 4 painlands per person which would be 23% of their mana base. Considering they would only be using them for fixing I would only think that people would be taking 2-3 damage off lands per game.
Hell, you'd probably taking more in a fetch/shock based cube.

How about we take the theory to the extreme? Make every non-basic land a City of Brass. This would probably devolve into everyone prioritising 1 and 2 drops, as due to the any colour fixing and the damage due to 23% of your mana base, so it just becomes an outright race.

I think this is a great theory to start to build a cube from that could lead down some interesting ideas. The most interesting part is the inherent strength of aggro in a cube with fixing that comes in untapped and even possibly hurts the opponent, so it may not be needed to push aggro as much as all other cubes to make it competitive.

Plus I have an EDH deck that lives in the vein of the painland glory:

With some of his toys:




Also, what would blue be doing in a cube like this? I guess it would be blue aggro tempo? Vapor Snag seems perfect.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Having a little bit of a split seems like it could be a good thing, as you again have that tension between multi-color greed, and simple mana bases built around basics. With decent life gain mechanics, it gives a control deck not only natural anti-aggro tools, but the ability to tap into the other colors. They just have to figure out how to turn a profit. I will probably just add some more city of brass/mana confluences though.

Darian is a really good idea, and it also occured to me that you could build a deck entirely around sun's bounty as well.

I'm not sure about blue, but I immediately think of mana short and power sink. Any sort of bounce effect also seems really brutal.

Red has manabarbs to build a prison deck around.

This whole thing has a sort of ABU magic feel to it.

Edit: I suppose though, the clearest place to start is G/R bloodthirst




Which also leads to some of the pinger archetypes we've talked about, which seems like the basis for an aggro control deck. Since I already am running (probably 2) copies of pit-skulk, I might as well toss in some "evasion based on power creatures", which means enchantments/artifacts/combat tricks, which brings us to spikeshot elder...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I don't know if reintroducing mana burn is such a good idea. It was abandoned for a good reason after all. It's not a part of the game anymore, so newer players might forget it, and, more importantly maybe even, newer mechanics weren't designed with mana burn in mind. I think I've read MaRo stating somewhere that certain mechanics weren't printable in a world of mana burn even. I think he was talking about fateful hour, which seems like it should really be part of this cube, even if it's not the strongest mechanic ever. Speaking of mechanics that should be in here, like stat.



Another one that would be really good in this cube, especially if added in volume (including the somewhat weaker cards):

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

In regards to the lands in the actual decks of the drafters, maybe you could both have a very painful mana base as well as a slightly higher focus on multicolor? This way you have (maybe) a chance of adding more tension to the draft as you balance between very powerful (life gaining?) cards as well as a dangerous mana base.

Fetch Fetch Shock Painland Painland, is that reasonable? Or what do you have in mind?

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Why is bloodthirst a natural fit here? Doesn't that mean that you have to have the opponent use a pain land during their turn?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

If they interact with you on your turn they turn bloodthirst online

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Why dethrone? When I looked it up, its a triggered ability that still gives the counter regardless of what happens to the life total prior to the trigger's resolution.

I added in a third set of pains. The worry I have with fetches, is that they let you avoid painlands to fix.

I want mana burn (and to have player death occur at end of turn) to encourage circle 1996 mirror universe plays. I never thought mana burn was that difficult to conceptualize, and figured they must have gotten rid of it because it wasn't relevent 99% of the time.

@Alfonso I will see your COP:Lands, and raise you a:



That would be too evil with manabarbs though.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Dethrone sits in an interesting mechanical space, where you actively want to have less life than your opponent, i.e. you want painlands and mana burn.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

The R/G blood thirst deck wants some good 1 drop sources of damage. I was thinking this was a good opportunity to run some sweet utility 1 drops.





I have granger guildmage in green, but am looking for some other (non-mana elf) cards to run.

I've been toying around with the pingers archetype, which has been really interesting.

There are the already mentioned bloodthirst interactions with an aggro deck.

Also midrange varients:



And Control




The selection of pingers is pretty overwhelming, lending itself to different strategies. Blood cultist, falkenrath exterminator work with a slower counters theme. Krovikan horror and cuombajj witches are slower black control cards. Spitting hydra and apocalypse hydra push a midrange R/G counters deck. Izzet provides niv-mizzet, the firemind, izzet staticaster, and gelectrode for a spell based U/R control deck. Goblin sharpshooter and krovikan horror support a R/B sacrifice or tokens deck.

Lots of choices.

 

[Kirblinx]

There really are a lot of options for pingers. Even blue has some relevant options:


Do they want to go in every colour?



There are also some other toys that could be relevant with the pingers:


In your above post, Souls of the Faultless only works with combat damage. But still seems like a good control card in the cube.
Also, you talk about green bloodthirst enablers. The ones that some to mind are:

The first three threaten to get bigger, so you can either pump if they block or if they doesn't drop the bloodthirst guy.
Then you have deathtouch, which I guess isn't that great of an enabler as opponents will be blocking them early so they don't trade with their bigger stuff. Hornet Sting is just there for lols. Could always go the MM2015 route as well and include Gut Shot.

But for the card that I think best represents what you want and you have already sung the praises of is:

Provides the 1-drop body, and an engine to allow the untapping of the fellow pingers.

I would have loved if blue had an aggro Illusion theme just for something different, but the large amount of pingers probably makes it too risky. Plus most of them are fairly trash anyway with only Phantasmal Bear and Phantasmal Dragon being the only real threats.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Really good post, I had missed a number of those cards. The mawcor's are actually kind of interesting, because they can ping the pingers until turning into evasive finishers. I had also forgotten the way cards that grant death touch or other status effects worked with pingers. Dismiss into dream and quest for renewal also look like really fun and unique build arounds. The rootwalla cards are also brilliant, because you can pump them in response to pingers.

I also think the other phantasmal cards are probably not going to make the cut, since it seems like going with a higher density of pingers is probably where I want to be. With all of those untap effects to power them, i'm wondering if maybe I should consider a line of bouncelands. It would also be nice because mana dorks won't really be realistic for ramp purposes.

Edit: Also, this is what blue is doing

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Edit: Also, this is what blue is doing

I approve! I have an unhealthy love for Thrummingbird. I even played it in constructed! People tend to undervalue that thing because it deals only 1 damage, so why waste the mana on that, but recurring proliferate on the cheap is secretly nuts!

 

[Kirblinx]

Edit: Also, this is what blue is doing

The only thing that concerns me about thrummingbird is that is is very unique in its function, and other things that proliferate (at a decent cost) aren't really in blue. I am guessing that if it is your there you will be having 3 maybe even 4 of the little blighter.

Also, if that is what blue is doing, then that narrows down the green bloodthirst enable down to this little fella as the cross archetypical pivot.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Please don't run Fungasaur that card was supposed to cost G1 in ALPHA, but was printed like so as a mistake

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, I added three thrummingbirds. One of the reasons (besides the obvious forthcoming counters theme) is that I wanted to run phyrexian mana, as another source of "bleed" damage.

So





I would like to see proliferate based tempo and control decks. So besides the already mentioned thrummingbird design (which will get a buff once counters is added), there is:





Maybe two contagion engines?

I'm also looking at a R/W control deck, that controls the board by using enchantments to buff scaling pingers like spikeshot elder, falkenrath exterminator, spikeshot goblin, and bloodshot trainee. Eventually, the buffed pingers act as a win con, overpowering whatever remains of the board. It could also use various pacificism effects to control the board, firemane angel as a source of linegain/win con, and red hydras that could be kept banked via the proliferate cards.

I actually have two fungusaur in the list right now. Once the counter lords are added, they seem like really nasty midrange threats, getting a variety of buffs, slowly growing to a dominating state, while being initially two large to be pinged out of the game. Though I was torn between running two of those and running two saber ants. Saber ants seem amazing in a variety of settings.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Is there a risk of disconnect between the slow grindy cards and the painful mana base?

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I would be concerned about a reliance on thrumming bird with the amount of lingers in the list. Are you planning on having some toughness boosting equipment or enchantments?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I have been busy, but I have not given up on the madness.

My plan to protect cards like thrummingbird is instant speed +1 +1 counters. It would play a bit like the heroic strategies in the penny pincher cube (or aggro-combo) where you react to removal to both preserve your thrummingbird and grow it into a threat. You don't want to cast the counter buff too early though, which creates a game state where you have to play around the perceived pressure of the thrummingbird going from being a utility piece into a major threat.




I've been toying with the idea of adding a round of bouncelands, and the tap untap interactions. Burst of strength would fit into that.

And at this point, I suppose we might as well bring out the rest of the outlast tribe.



But lets move back to the important topic of torture. I want to see discard as a major part of the cube, since it provides a reason to play out spells into the mana base. I could then add delve spells, which benefit from discard and turn it into tempo, to minimize interactions with the mana base.

Spoiler

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Isn't the rack busted even in regular powerful cubes?

 

[Kirblinx]

Isn't the rack busted even in regular powerful cubes?

Nah, I feel The Rack is pretty low-powered. I suppose if you have no cards in hand when it is dropped you will be taking 6 damage over three turns minimum, but if you got yourself into that position and weren't winning when they dropped it, you probably wouldn't be coming back anyway. I think people feel Black Vise is the powerful one, as it does all the damage early and punishes control. I personally think they are both fine cards in their own right without being fantastic.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Oh no I was totally thinking of black vise I think

 

[Kirblinx]

I have been busy, but I have not given up on the madness.

My plan to protect cards like thrummingbird is instant speed +1 +1 counters. It would play a bit like the heroic strategies in the penny pincher cube (or aggro-combo) where you react to removal to both preserve your thrummingbird and grow it into a threat. You don't want to cast the counter buff too early though, which creates a game state where you have to play around the perceived pressure of the thrummingbird going from being a utility piece into a major threat.

Seems like a pretty cool way to use the 'birds. The only thing that saddens (concerns?) me is that all this makes the 'birds seem like a splash to support the abzan counter tribe. They don't have any in-colour support (as of yet) to give them their own identity. So lets try and remedy that and see what blue has counter wise:
Evolve, Level Up, Dethrone, Heroic, Monstrous, Megamorph, Kicker, Graft, Undying, Cumulative upkeep

I added some cool cards that didn't have any of the aforementioned abilities (Vedalken Anatomist is an interesting one). It seems the abilities that have the most depth are level up (surprisingly) and heroic. The others have a smattering of good cards that can be used, but not enough to be considered a 'theme'. I think you should give onderzeeboot's dethrone post another chance, as it may fit rather well. I guess the couple of graft guys are what you want first as you can pass the counter onto a 'bird and make it get out of hand? I just don't know.

I have been busy, but I have not given up on the madness.

Spoiler

Holy moley. Now that is breaking singleton into pieces. Is this number really needed? Will there be many other colours other than black that would seriously want to pick this up? Would a couple of Shrieking Affliction be better just so you don't see so many of the same card? I don't know how I feel about this until I see it in action. Stuffy Doll is cute. I do like that guy. Chittering Rats I find very unfun, I would prefer just losing the card, but that is personal preference.

Alright, that was a decent enough of a reply. Now for a package I would hope to see in this cube one day but is probably a little too strong: