The Penny Pincher Cube (360)

[Grillo_Parlante]

{Edit: Building the Cube: As its been brought to my attention some people don't feel comfortable just doing this, if you want to build the penny pincher cube thats fine.

I would just ask that credit be given to me, and that you at least try it as is.

There has been hundreds of hours worth of cube tutor drafts, forums posts, real life drafts (across three limited format styles), from dozens of contributors. The vast majority of the cards are in the lists for a reason, and shouldn't just be cut haphazardly. Thank you!}


Hello!

Since I've completed the project, I am updating here. The spoilers below contain the original post.

The cube tutor link is here.

To recap, this is lower power environment, drawing inspiration from my experiences in pauper, VMA, MMA, III, RGD, and KTK. Its designed to be an affordable, accessible, draft format at 360, that still has rich sophisticated interactions.

Originally, this was to be a singleton format, but during the building process we realized that this was holding back some of the more interesting aspects of the cube. Some of the original themes didn't come to fruition either due to narrowness or a lack of space.

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone that participated, either by drafting a deck, or leaving comments or thoughts in the thread. There were several points during the design process where user contributions helped clarify the best way to achieve the format's goals, without which the project would have been a failure (or at least cost me/time money figuring out what went wrong.

Game Play​

The unique gameplay angles that this cube is exploring are two fold:

1. The implications of a bounce land/cantrip based format to smooth out draws and prevent non-games.

2. The implications of a bounce land based format to enable sophisticated decks--in this instance, combo decks.

A theory for why RGD was such a beloved format is that it naturally had a lower % of non-games than other limited formats. You had amble access to cantrip effects,TOL manipulation, to power yourself through miserable draws, and bounce lands to address color/mana screw.

Higher power cubes can easily address color fixing issues with expensive fetch-shock-ABU dual lines, but fetch lands do not adequately address mana screw issues. Cheap bounce lands (unplayable in a higher powered format), however, do.

Another theory is that higher power (re: more expensive cards) allows for richer, deeper interactions than lower power cubes. I am not sure I agree with this, as I believe that lower power formats are uniquely positioned to enable a complex archetype that is generally problematic to design for in higher power environments: combo.

Lower power formats generally feature weaker combo disruption than their higher power brethern, as a natural result of WOTZ's card library. Their is more creative freedom to build from, and less of a need for non-interactive, largely spell-based, combo platforms. Here, I take heavy inspiration from Pauper's creature based, slightly slower, but very robust, familiar combo deck.

This is a bounceland based combo deck. As a result, the cube does not devout slots to narrow ritual effects (which rather jarringly jump the mana curve) the primary means of mana acc. (and color fixing) is provided for by the mana base itself. Bouncelands are a bit slower; and this is a win-win for everyone, as it allows for a complex archetype that a lot of people would enjoy, but dosen't ruin the fun of everyone else.

A final theory states that bouncelands are not really cubeable, since it creates an unfair disadvantage for aggro decks. I'm not sure I agree (at lower power level). KTK used CIPT lands to create a split in drafting strategies, with slower, greedy 4-5 color decks going down a strategic route of multi-color haymakers, while aggro decks use simplier mana bases to capitalize on the tempo loss inherient in CIPT lands. RGD had a similar (though perhaps not as pronounced) relationship with its multi-color haymaker strategies and its aggro strategies. I think this relationship is replicable here, and adds depth to the draft. I also have a few other strategic splits regarding the issue of mana fixing, represented by artifact eggs and green enchantments.

In sum, I think this limitation can result in interesting decisions, both in draft and in game.

Construction​

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Anyone that follows my posts knows that I favor an approach of writing out all 10 guilds, and developing a theme and sub-theme for each color pairing. This sort of structured design approach helps prevent "cube-designers regret" down the line, when you realize that no one is going into G/R, and now you need to patch in a few G/R decks, hoping that your inclusions/exclusions won't make the cube worse. By having all combinations represented, and a backup sub-theme, you help make sure that you have as broad a gamespace as possible for your drafters to explore, thus preventing (or at least delying) them from solving the format.​

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Also, people generally don't draft mono-colored decks, so i.m.o it makes little sense to think in terms of "what does my green section do." Your green section will never be played on its own, it will always be supplimented by another color, which will warp whatever it is that its doing. The only exception, I find, is red. Someone will, inevitably, draft a mono-red aggro deck.​

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The design of this cube also really hammered in the importance of having broadly applicable cards. I think I was knocked off track a bit by MMA and VMA, each which use print runs to enable narrow decks in their respective formats. However, in cube, since you can't use a print run to control the availability of certain cards, every card must be broadly applicable. Its a bit like designing a good sideboard for a constructed environment with a broad array of possible matchups: your cards have to be relevent in many places, not just a few. For example, in cube, thirst for knowledge is a better card blue draw spell to run to support an artifact theme, than thoughtcast.​

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Also, of course, the need to minimize variance caused by:​

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1. Mana flood (addressed via mana sinks)​

2. Color Screw (addressed via the proportional availability of mana fixers)​

3. Mana Screw (addressed via bounce lands/cycling/cantrips/cheap TOL manipulation)​

4. Poor Hands (addressed via deck building, cycling, cantrips, cheap TOL manipulaton)​

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Finally, the need to prevent:​

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1. Board stalls (addressed via evasive creatures, removal, combat tricks, temporary protection)​

2. Removal Check/attrition Format (addressed via balanced threats with not too strong/abundent removal)​

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Archetypes​

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The archetypes that I arrived at look to be:​

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UW: Splicers Midrange/Flash tempo/draw-go control​

UB: Ninjas Tempo-control/UB Mystical Teachings/ Solar Flare​

BR: Sacrifice Aggro/Jund/ Sacrifice Midrange​

RG: Control Ramp/Power Matters aggro​

GW: Splicers Midrange/Selesnya Kitty/Counter Lords​

BW: Lifepay Control/Orzhov Kity reanimator​

UR: Artifact themed Control/spell velocity based tempo​

BG: Rampaimator/Value Grind​

RW: Wide Aggro/Artifact themed or boros kitty Midrange​

GU: Aura Prowess/Hexproof​

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There is some flexibility here, of course. The general flavor of each color is:​

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R: aggro support with flexible burn and card filtering to support control.​

W: Value Midrange and control elements.​

G: midrange and ramp​

U: Tempo support and card draw​

B: Tempo-Control and hand disruption​

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Again, not too heavy of a focus on mono-color, since you will hardly every get a mono-color deck (beyond maybe red). I am ok with three+ color decks being a place of creative exploration, providing that they have a solid 2 color base to build from. Grixis and Esper are natural combo colors though.​

Note: Since the gold section is intended to consist of "nudge" cards, I encourage a lot of experimentation in that area.

​

Original Post below:​

Spoiler

Hey everyone,

I have a project I've been toying around with for a while now, based on some of my experiences with my own lower power environment, pauper constructed, and draft formats like VMA, MMA, III, RGD, and KTK. My goal is to create an affordable, accessible, draft environment at 360, with rich sophisticated interactions.

I'm going to provide a general skeleton of what I have in mind below, as well as a cube tutor link: here. I'm not asking you to do most of the work--as you will see I have a fairly good idea where I want to take things--but your input would be greatly appreciated, and help me refine things. I have certain prompts that I will use from time-to-time, to help solicit opinions.

Of course, if any expensive cards slip through, let me know!

But lets start with the cube's general structure. I will provide an outline and list of goals below. As of this first post, I have taken the liberty to fill out what I consider the "guts" of the cube, and will explore various themes in detail later.

But lets dive in!

Goals​

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To restate: create an affordable, accessible, draft environment at 360, with rich sophisticated interactions.​

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At lower power level, both the relative brokeness of combos and the the availability of combo disruption plumments drastically, so this seems like a safe place to explore that area of cube space, without resulting in bad games.​

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Due to the scale of the print run that we have available to use at this power level, I feel their is no need to break singlton. Some people also have huge problems with breaking singleton, so this should make the cube more accessable.​

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I would also like to see mono colored, guild based, wedge/shard, and 4-5 color decks.​

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Ways the the Format Challenges the Drafter​

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The chief challenges that a drafter must overcome are:​

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1. Mana fixing: I would like to limit the availability of good, smooth mana fixing. This slows the format down, allowing for people to creatively explore the game space, and create a tension between 1-2 color aggro decks looking to rush under or disrupt, and powerful multi-colored decks trying to abuse bouncelands or eggs (chromatic star ect.).​

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2. Deck Manipulation: To put together game winning interactions in a singlton format, you need to manipulate your deck. I've decided to lean heavily on top-of-library tutors (TOL tutors) to do this.​

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We had a thread about how cycling and cantrip effects smooth out and improve games, and in conjunction with TOL tutors, cantrips also serve an important role as a way to immediatly gain access to your tutor target. This adds a lot of decision making as to how best to use cycling or cantrip effects. TOL tutors also complicate milling, self-milling, and shuffling interactions, either setting up your plays, or making them vulnerable to disruption.​

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This also intersects nicely with the way mana eggs address fixing issues, as many of those cards cantrip.​

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Key Mechanics​

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Many of these haven't been actually established as keyword mechanics, but they represent the sort of mechanics I would like to have the cube enviornment warped around:​

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1. Top of Library (TOL) manipulation: To solve the resource scarcity resulting from limited copies of key cards.​

2. Cantrip: Both to smooth out draws and improve the quality of games, as well as to help connect the above two mechanics.​

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Major Brewing Pieces​

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To facilitate people exploring the game space, I at least want to have a denisty of certain effects that they can base decks around:​

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1. Eggs: Mana fixing eggs opening up multi-color strategies, acting as a card draw engine, and discounting or powering up certain spells.​

2. TOL tutors: Setting up TOL based or graveyard based combos, as well as facilitating powerful land untapping effects.​

3. Land Untap Effects: Their exists a host of spells in blue and green that allow you to untap lands. Used in conjunction with ravinca's bounce lands, it allows for you to feed complex ramp strategies as well as infinite combos.​

4. Token Makers: Tokens as disposable bodies to hold the ground and be milked for value from death or enters the battlefield triggers.​

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Spoiler

Themes and Sub-Themes​

Where I think a particular theme or sub theme bleeds strongly into another, I have used red type.

I will go into these in more detail, but to remove some of the shorthand confusion, fish refers to a disruptive aggro deck (which will probably be based around a mixture of merfolk and faeries), while grow refers to a deck that either deals damage in bursts via combat tricks, or tries to grow its creatures vertically. The spirit deck is one I have in mind, but haven't really fleshed out.

I realize you are without context for many of the themes; I just want to provide a basic road map or blue print, that will hopefully help spot issues before they develop into real problems.

Guilds:

Azorius Senate: Control, fish/flyers/flicker/token aggro

House Dimir: Fish, TOL combo/reanimator/control/mill/self mill

Cult of Rakdos: reanimator aggro/sacrifice aggro/goblins

Gruul Clans: Grow Aggro, ion storm midrange/Ramp/Midrange, Spirits

Selesnya Conclave: auras aggro, little kid midrange/tokens aggro

Orzhov Syndicate: spirits/tokens, humans/extort midrange

Izzet League: Spells Matter/double strike combo, Control

Golgari Swarm: Dredge, attrition midrange

Boros Legion: Tokens/wide aggro, Control

Simic Combine: Grow fish/Grow Midrange, ramp/bounceland combo, Spirits, self-mill

Mono Colored:

U: Fish
R: goblins aggro
G: Grow Aggro
W: Tokens aggro
B: Mono Black Control

Shards:

GWU Bant: Affinity
WUB Esper: Bounceland combo
UBR Grixes: Bounceland combo, Spirits Combo
BRG Jund: Attrition Midrange
GWR Naya: hexproof aggro

Wedges:

URW Jestai: Double Strike combo
BUG Sultai: TOL/graveyard combo
RWB Mardu: Tokens sacrifice
RUG Temur: Affinity
WBG Abzan: Attrition Midrange

4-5 Colors: Control, Affinity, Spirit Combo

Issues​

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So, to provide something concrete to respond to at this point, these are the things I am concerned with:​

1. What do you think of the mana base?

2. How do the themes and sub themes seem to you at first glance?
3. Are there any obvious cards that seem to be missing from the cube's guts?
4. Does the casting cost of any of the spells seem to wave a red flag (too high ortoo low)?
5. What are some good non-blue sources of card advantage that would fit here?
6. Any other misc. thoughts you might have.

I am most focused on the mana base. I opted to go with 10 bouncelands, 10 gain lands, and 10 gates. I know I want the 10 bouncelands, but I'm not sure about the rest. In the past, I would just go for great fixing, so this balancing is new for me.

Is that too few sets of fixers or too many? I'm also not really deeply invested in the idea of a multi-color format, but traditionally those types of formats ran a bunch of powerful gold cards and great land fixing, while I want to have part of the land fixing problem covered by disposable artifacts, and don't care too strongly about gold cards (which might be a mistake).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Peter LaCara]

Well, let's address the fixing first. I think having no sources of fixing that come into play untapped at all is a mistake. I would at least consider the painlands or the buddy lands over the guildgates, unless you were planning on including a bunch of cards that care about the gate subtype. I think not caring about gold cards at all is also a mistake. There's a reason Theros, a set nominally about focusing on monocolor archetypes for devotion, included a bunch of gold uncommons. Gold cards help anchor a draft and give people a direction to go in early. Even if you're looking for a lower power format with cheap cards, there are a bunch of sweet gold uncommons or bulk rares that you could run with that would enhance your themes, like Lyev Skyknight or Lyzolda, the Blood Witch.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, I'll run gold cards, what I mean more by that is not having a big gold section where the gold cards represent the high end of the power curve, and are a major draw for wanting to go into multi-colors. In MMA, you didn't have a focus on gold cards, but people were still occasionally running 4-5 color decks off of vivid lands.

The painlands are too pricy for me to consider for this particular cube--cheap cheap cheap! I think that applies to all of the lands that don't come into play tapped; even something like secluded glen goes for about 5 bucks. I figure I've I can recreate a KTK/RGD feel with this--where mana fixing creates a tempo void that other decks can exploit--it should still be fun. Maybe vivid lands rather than gates?

 

[Modin]

I'd suggest Goldnight Commander for it's synergy with instant speed token makers. If your selesnya decks are to have an aura theme you could also think about cards like Presence of Gond (with or without the combo) and Totem-Guide Hartebeest.
Fun Goblins? Goblin Ringleader, Auntie's Snitch, Goblin Bushwhacker, Murderous Redcap is probably too strong.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I think the mana base is fine in principle, though there are a few considerations that you will need to wrangle with. Firstly though, what would be perfect IMO other than cost issues are the theros block temple cycles.



I would imagine these will be cheap when they rotate out, but they have the cip tapped element that you are looking for, smooth draws and help you look for you cards in a singleton environment. The scry encourages people to take them in all the types of decks you are looking to encourage people to play.

One of the issues with the mana base is how far you take the themes. So with the bouncelands, you probably want to play



And the for synergy you want to add



But then you want to add in answers to deal with them, such as land destruction, which gives feel bads and undermines bouncelands in the first place. If you do go down the route you prob want to avoid cheap removal that hits lands and look for more expensive ways to deal with these types of cards so you don't have too much splash damage. (There is a thread somewhere on this type of ramp you might want to dig up and read.)

One of my issues I had with the eggs is the amount I'd design space they take up in the cube. And then in order to help encourage players to use them you start including synergies such as



Which then leads to other synergies and before you know it you've run out of room for other stuff to do bear in mind the more you go down these routes the more desirable you make these picks and make mana fixing scarcer. Anyway, I don't think this is necessarily a problem but something thats helpful to be aware of.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thats great feedback. I think I will probably eventually cut the guild gates, and turn those into the scry lands. I really like the way they synergize with the bounce lands to get multiple scry effects, manipulating the TOL.

For anti-karoo cards, I was thinking of running stuff like ghost quarter and spreading seas: its disruptive but isn't a complete blow-out. I'm not sure how many cards like that have been printed, but even if its only a few, I think thats ok. I think its more important to have the bouncelands be respectable picks.

I figure I will have to wait until we get further along to get an idea whether to run a fourth set of duals or if 3 is fine. If I want to increase the cube's power level in the gold section, and encourage the occasional 4-5 color deck, its important that there be a mana fixing safety net for people going down that road.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

hmmm...

there is actually a surprising number of spreading sea like effects:

 

[Modin]

How do you feel about pauper like interactions as bouncing cantripping permanents for value? (see Kor Skyfisher, Glint Hawk and the like.)
(for reference: http://magicgatheringstrat.com/2014/06/boros-kitty-a-primer-in-two-parts/, or even Reality Acid, but I think that's going pretty deep (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/azorius-kittyacid-trip/)

Edit: When browsing through Modern Masters, I realized how perfect Esperzoa would be!

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Oh...we will be running kor skyfisher and glint hawk...don't you worry about that.

Right now I am trying to get my head wrapped around the big mana (broken combo) portion of the cube. I think the sort of esper familiar deck would come together infrequently. You really need ghostly flicker for it to work. It can came together with into the void and undo but you want some of the blue reduction familiars for it to work.

To those of you unfamiliar with the combo, this is infinite mana:



You than either kill people by playing out a mass of card draw and threats, milling them with sage's row denizen/compulsive research, or in the old days, kill them with storm cards. The neat thing is that I don't have to waste space on narrow ritual cards or traditional green ramp, as the big mana generation portion of the cube is already built until the mana base. All of the cards have utility in other archetypes: control, spells matter, ramp ect. If someone is trying to go into one of these decks, they can always piviot into a simple ramp deck or a control deck. The need to run bouncelands also slows it down, making it vulnerable to a combination of pressure and disruption.

You might need a sunscape familiar or nightscape familiar to make up for a bounce land, or maybe a snap on the cloud of faeries, but the basic idea is to generate a bunch of mana and than go infinite with untap effects. Its very hard to disrupt at lower power level, and you can always run reap the graves to get around countermagic on your faeries.

I added some transmute tutors and a diabolic tutor to hopefully help out the aspiring combo player looking for specific instants or sorceries.

I'm a little rough here, as there seems to be too different big mana plays: one revolving around snap effects to generate massive mana bursts or go infinte; and the other using green land untap creatures in conjunction with creature untap effects to make massive amounts of mana.



For example, ends on 15-16 mana without familiar help, and something like 5-6 storm count. It gets easier of course, with some of the discount familiars, or if you mix in a few other land untap effects, reducing the need for so many bounce lands. You can also get a similar effect with certain white combat tricks like inspirit or hope and glory. You should be able to storm out the game from there, or pull ahead in a massive way.

The majority of the blink effects are white, so a cloud of faeries based deck I think would have to be UBW or URW. The green version of it would be a UG storm/ramp hybrid, and would probably want either red or black as the third color.

Blink/bounce effects




Mana discount




Land Untap effects



Blink targets



The Kill


?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

So, I have the stormish archtypes split into UW flicker/ramp and UG "untap lands" ramp, with some ways thrown in to go infinte. The UW deck can run a sort of flicker disruption deck as another theme, while UG can use + + counters. The UG deck seems like it will be easier to go infinite with, but more disruptable, while the UW deck looks like the inverse. Won't have an idea how it works really until I do some practice drafts.

Because of all the "untap creature" effects I added, I wanted to add some other cards that interacted with those effects:





Not sure if matsu-tribe sniper or merieke will make the final cut. I also added kor skyfisher and emancipation angel as they work so well with the land untap creatures. Oddly, this was my chance to run snake tribal, since so many of those cards prevent untap on the next upkeep.

And some ways to abuse mana ramp:





Ojubi is speculative based on how well my spirit experiment goes. Bringers, due to effects and 5 mana alt. costs. TA and eternal dragon due to cycling.

Any sweet ramp targets or big mana plays I am missing?

 

[Modin]

I'm already a big fan of this cube and planning to build it myself as soon as the project is "finished", so I'm eagerly looking forward to everyone of your posts
A green ramp target that the green ramp deck in pauper plays is Auroch's Herd you'd probably have to squadron them or something, so I'm not sure if that's what you want.
On a totally different note Crypt Champion is a fun card that I've always wanted to cube, it might fit the Rakdos Sac-Reanimate Archetype, Death Spark is also a super sweet card for people toying around with creatures in the graveyard.
I love how the artifact theme evolves, Porcelain Legionaire and Vault Skirge are cards I'd also like to see. Maybe Signal Pest could even find a way into this cube, as it supports swarm strategies, as well as the affinity/metalcraft plan. All that said I think it's gonna be pretty hard to consistently get metalcraft in aggressive decks. The spellbombs are definately a step in the right direction but the fact that you've got to have 3 artifacts out in addition to the metalcraft guy is asking alot. However having the ability to flash in artifacts with cards like Master's Call sounds super awesome!

Edit: Another hotty (especially wiht Trinket Mage):

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thanks Modin! I think i'm going to stick to the singleton limitations and price restrictions for now, but I will provide sort of an addendum of cards that are cubable. Grand arbiter augustin IV, for example, is only being excluded because of his price. Crypt champion is a really good idea. I'll need a little help fleshing that one out though, I have a few ideas.

I refined the blue section a bit, and realized there were a number of cards that easily made up for not having multiple copies of ghostly flicker:





Which provides at least 4 ways to go infinte in a U deck, and allowing me to cut down on some of the more janky enablers. I cut the spreading seas effects in blue, which I will explain in the next update (which is not quite ready).

The affinity portion of the cube came together pretty well, though for some reason I had forgotten about the capsules, vault skirge, and legionnaire so thank you for that.
Affinity ended up with a strong UW base, but has the ability to run 5 colors due to the eggs. I like this, because I suspect there will be some competition for those cards, and this way an affinity drafter isn't crippled if they have to compete for those resources.

I'm also running all six of the artifact lands, which makes trinket mage really good as a mana fixer, and affinity enabler.

Incidental support cards





White Aggro Cards





Blue Support




Red Combo and support




Green Aggro




There is an absolute ton of cubable colorless artifacts I can run. Besides the various eggs, other fixers, spellbombs and equipment I think these are the most important:





I debated a bit on the sculptor and esperzoa. Since I can run helm with sculptor, that makes it a bit of an easier choice, and the bounceland based combo decks will want helm. Esperzoa I think there is enough cheap artifacts to make it worth running, and a number of them synergize very well with him as a source of card draw. Not sure if Sanctum gargoyle deserves a lot. Also, not sure about cards like feldon of the third path, and that red artifact living death (though that one seems sweet).

 

[Chris Taylor]

I like court homonculblahblahblah way more than ardent recruit If you wanted to double up.

Meatalcraft guys who aren't artifacts have always been a bit akward

 

[Modin]

With all the eggs, this guy will surely make some friends(not sure about other sunburst cards though):

These guys also look cool with all the artifacts that will naturally land in the yard:


Also not sure if you noticed, but Briarhorn is a more flexible Briarpack Alpha

Edit: Also I quite like the possible interactions between the outlast guys an the untappers, it makes for awewome shenanigans!

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thanks modin!

I wanted to sort of flesh out the blue section, since that tends to be the hardest one to do because of space restrictions, and let me know what you think about the path I went down.

Originally, I wanted there to be a fun blue disruptive-aggro deck (aka tempo, aka aggro control) where the player would try to get ahead on board position, I wanted it to either be a fish or faeries deck, but both those ideas fell apart when I realized that the cornerstone to any faeries strategy is spellstutter sprite. Besides this being designed as a singleton list, even were I to break singlton, I think it would be difficult for a player to have the density of that card needed to make it worthwhile.

For fish, most of the good cards were priced out, but even than, the number of disruptive fish effects is vanishingly small. On top of that, it dosen't really synergize well with other strategies, and maybe is a bit too narrow and mono blue to be fun.

So, I had a real conundrum, until I remembered the nature of the cube's mana base, and some of Alfonso's concerns with mana denial against the bouncelands. What if there was an easy answer to all of those problems?




Normally, I don't like running a lot of these types of bouncespells, but when the mana base consists of CIPT lands bouncelands, bouncing one seems like it could be a pretty big setback. If you can get guys on the ground to hit with, it seems like a viable disruptive aggro approach, while also providing a way to hate on bouncelands without absolutely punishing the strategy. Counting pestermite and temporal fissure, there are seven of those types of disruptive spells in blue, as well as 3 in the multi-color section. That should be enough density for someone to gravitate towards, pick up enough copies, and make a deck focused on cheap threats and disruption.

One thing that did make the cut were the ninjas (2 in blue, 2 in black) which I think will be a lot of fun. Ninjutsu tends to suffer in cube the faster the environment is, and things look to be a bit slower here. In addition, they can return Archaeomancer and company to the hand, getting back the above mentioned bounce, and continuing to disrupt the opponent. I also added a bunch of detain guys in white, which also benefit from the ninjas.

Force spike and mana tithe good enough?

Etched Oracle is a really good addition. Salvagers probably looks good enough. Unlike gargoyle, you should be able to set it up as a pretty convincing value engine. Salvage titan I don't think will have the impact needed to justify a slot: not having trample is such a big deal.

I'm ok with cards like ardent recruit, because auriok sunchaser, auriok edgewright, and carapace forger all have the same weakness, and the solution should be increasing artifact count i.m.o. We already are running a pretty high artifact density, with +6 due to the artifact lands.

I like salvage slasher, but right now I'm not sure I really have the support for it: that deck is basically a combo deck that wants to "go off" with eggs and swipe in for lethal: sort of an artifact version of a kiln fiend deck. Though speaking of kiln fiend, I added that deck to the cube, and maybe there is enough incidental overlap.

For those unfamiliar, you take one or more of these:




add in some cheap spells, possibly including one of these:




than sprinkle with double strike for the kill




It tends to be a spell heavy deck, and I have some incidental support for that with young pyro, delver, random prowess dudes, and quirion dryad. It also gets incidental support from the familiars being run for the combo decks.

I started adding a bunch of + + counters in, but took a pause when I realized how large the potential list is. Outlast is a really cool mechanic though.

The last major addition was this dude:



who is another great combo piece.

 

[Modin]

I think one.of the most important things to keep in mind when constructing this cube, is the mana base and how it plays. I didnt draft the old ravnica block but I have a few asumptions about how the lands will play(surely you will have thought of most of these and testing will show wether they matter or not):

1) Bouncelands help players to reach 4+ Mana much more consistently, so bigger spells will probably be what's up.
2) The fact that the earliest turn to play a bounceland is turn 2, reactive decks will probably want to have tools to regain tempo on t3 or 1 mana plays(maybe 1 mana instants) so they can still play the bouncelands in time and still interact. Playing a bounceland on t2 also means that you probably want to play an untapped land, so these are the turns in which the greedier decks could ideally play their eggs.(Going through the list again, the CIPT lands with ETB effects are awesome with the bounce lands, this format is gonna be grindy )
3) Aggressive decks will want good 2 drops to play after leading with a cipt land on t1.
4) By the nature of the mana base people will probably be rather short on their mana, giving cards like Mana Tithe and Force Spike more room to work with(baseless speculation). Also retrace cards like Flame Jab or Oona's Grace interact very nicely with bouncelands and can help generate extra value.

@Blue disruption: I love the idea in theory, also the fact that most of these spells cost UU will force the drafter further into mono U, if you wanted to encourage mono colored decks, I'd try to give those decks some reach/abilities their colors wouldn't normally get via artifacts in order to make those decks more appealing. (Besides equipment, cards like Icy Manipulator come to mind, this might even be a format slow enough for Crystal Ball)

A card choice I can't really comprehend is Quicksilver Behemoth, what was your reasoning behind this card? Qumulox looks like a much more playable card for any deck that would want the Behemoth.

5th edit: with all the ++ stuff, what's your opinion on
vs ?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think you are probably right about Qumulox, I just missed it when going over gatherer! I think I also likedragonscale boon over spidery grasp, if it comes down to space issues, though it might be nice to have both. Right now I will put boon in over grasp.

For the blue bounce, right now 3 of those effects have . I wanted to run Rescind because of the cycling, but there are several cards that do the exact same thing at I could run in its place.

Yeah, I really like the way that the utility lands interact with the bouncelands. Running the scry lands, like Alfonzo suggested, seems awesome, and something to run for those that have them. I hadn't even thought about those retrace spells, but yeah that seems like a great idea.

I also forgot, those ninjas are going to be sweet with the splicers.

The way the bouncelands impacted RGD, is pretty similar to the way CIPT lands impact KTK, and an extent pauper aggro decks: you end up with a split between slower multi-color decks and faster mono or bi-color color aggro decks. I'm expecting something of a similar split in drafting strategy, and maybe I should encourage that in the multi-color section a bit (like chief of the edge/chief of the scale in KTK). I think i'm just going to stuff the multi-color section right now, and than redesign it when we get all of the themes set down. That way I can get a better idea as to exactly what and how I want to root themes.

We'll see how it works out though. Once I can start doing practice drafts, I'll have a better idea how things come together. Its really funny to think that icy manipulator might actually be good here. Where is my 1997 time machine?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm going to have to tune some of the sections it looks like in the near future, white and green are stilling to get pretty full. Blue I'm pretty happy with, though I think their are maybe a few loose cards in the section until I can start doing some practice drafts. I put regress in for rescind to make those mana requirements a bit easier. If force spike dosen't work out, I think maybe power sink is the counter to run. I also added in some more combat tricks in green, which means its time to start thinking about removal.

One of the things I like about having toughness boosting combat tricks in green is that its adds a lot of depth to the color: suddenly combat tricks can double as disruptive counters (or removal for that matter)--providing that removal in the other colors is done right. For that reason I really like toning down the availability of insta kill spot removal in white and black.

By taking a focus away from naturally large midrange dudes, it adds a lot more depth to red as well, which can now competently play a control role, as well as supporting aggro-control and aggro strategies. This is what I am looking at for red spot removal:




For mass removal, i'm not yet sure if 2 or 3 is the critical point on pyroclasm effects, but for now I am thinking of:




Also, rough//tumble

White provides a strong source for graveyard hate with its pacifism effects, increasing the value of any enchantment hate I decide to include, making bounce better as a disruptive tool, and making sacrifice strategies more appealing. This is a pretty standard assortment of cards like journey to nowhere, prison term, and faith's fetters (which should be good here since the format is slower and the life gain helps make up for lost tempo).

Blue has some tap effects but is more bounce focused.

For black I want a focus on edict effects and cards that give minus until EOT. There are a few more expensive exile effects like silence the believers and sever the bloodline. Consuming vapors, pestilence and dead drop immitate mass removal. Darkblast returns to his throne, and i'm also running murderous cut. I like the way these cards interact with token strategies and shroad/hexproof strategies: its just a unique approach to removal.

 

[Modin]

Supporting both an artifact theme and a lot of enchantments seems a bit ambitious, I'd be especially weary of cards like Ancestral Mask as they are probably either super good or feel like a trap. A way to add more auras could be by using stuff like this, that can also work as combat tricks/protection:


Also the new blue Flying, Hexproof, Manifest card looks appealing.
Additionally I think that such an hexproof theme is much more at home in bant colors, as blue naturally adds the much needed card selection and more active protection. Another thing I'd have an eye on is the cost of artifact/enchantment kill ETB effects on creatures as you don't want to punish people to hard for going into artifact heavy decks. (cards like Reclamation Sage for example are cube staples that will probably be much better in this cube)

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, I added those cards in last night and did a few practice drafts. The decks came together pretty well. You are spot on about streamlining those auras, though that is in general something I will have to do for the entire cube down the road.

Yeah, the volume of non-narrow enchantment/artifact hate is, as usual, a bit of an issue.

I'm going to have to do some streamlining of the affinity section: the deck is there, but it is super difficult to draft. There are just too many different directions to take, and its very challenging balancing fixing, cheap metalcraft af, af lands, threats and draw. I had salvage slasher in but cut him: there just isn't enough support for him overall. Auriok Salvagers looks great though. Edgewright needs to go due to the CC.

The white splicers do a ton for the deck, and I think them + porcelain legionnaire probably represent best the direction it should be going.

 

[Modin]

With Salvagers and Splicers the deck looks to be much more midrangy than I first considered, by that it could run much more colors and different threats. Is that something you appreciate?
If you wanted there to be a (white) aggro deck that wants artifacts I'd suggest to try the Mirrodin cards that want to be equipped, they look as poisony as the metalcraft/zendikar dudes(although there aren't many I'd consider to be worth cubing) but at least equipment overlaps with hexproof aggro.
,
@Artifact/Enchantment hate: I think that cards like Kami of Ancient Law and Torch Fiend to be fair game for the earlier stages and higher cmc cards for the later stages. (Mold Shambler maybe, or the everpresent Acidic Slime)

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Looking it over, I think the basic idea is still valid: artifacts + mana fixing artifacts for a multi-color deck. The green metalcraft cards are not bad bodies on their own. I think the real issue is some of the low cc white metalcraft guys. They really pressure you to take cheap artifacts in the draft, and I doubt the final reward is worth it. I'm ok with a more midrangy artifact deck, what I am really wanting is that sense of explosiveness.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Made some changes, added some more raw power to the af section and cut some of the white metalcraft creatures.

In the test draft, things felt much smoother, though I get the sense that cube tutors AI is making my life difficult by picking artifact lands it has no reason to pick.

I went in on a first pick atog to see where things would go. I will admit, I was maybe a bit conservative with my pool, and i'm not sure I would be that way in real life. I have trinket mage to get vault of whispers, so maybe should have picked up 1-2 pieces of black removal. I took some of the green enchantment fixing I added for boggles, rolled in some high end threats, and have some card draw, combat tricks, and bounce.

Lets get a verdict on a few things:

1. How does atog look here?
2. How does Esperzoa look?

Atog seems a bit weak to me, without enough targets to eat. Esperzoa, on the other hand, looks like he has some interesting interactions with retriever and wellspring. He even has some super cheap 1cc artifacts to play with, if worse comes to worse.

Darksteel juggernaut has 12 artifacts total to pump him.

Affinity Test from CubeTutor.com

 

[Modin]

Atog looks even worse than Esperzoa in my opinion, Zoa needs you to get wellspring/Myr retriever and offers endless value if time and mana allowed it. Atog on the other hand has mostly higher impact artifacts to eat which isn't really what you want to do with it. This is no 12 artifact land base in which Atog reads "sac a land gain +2/+2".

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Do you think Esperzoa is worth its slot? I know its hard to tell before playing a few games, but it seems to me that in a world where you are under pressure, he is pretty bad, but in a more grindy game he is going to be pretty fun The format looks pretty grindy at this point, so I think he has potential.

But than, I have something of a soft spot for Esperzoa.