[Design/Discussion] The Spiral

[Grillo_Parlante]

Loam is an awkward card to run.

You don't actually need to recur lands that many times in these decks, and you rarely have time to do so. Prior to getting lands in your yard, its effectively an uncastable, making it like an a + b draw spell of limited value in a vacumn.

In terms of list space efficiently, its awkward. Loam requires a defensive line, or gain life, to make up for the time spinning your wheels with it.

The etb based effects are 2 in one packages, that grant you both the spell effect you want, as well as the defensive body.

Basically, like most things cube, etb effect attached to a reasonable body is generally going to be better than a stronger version of the spell effect in isolation.

I might add loam at some point, but right now its a problematic direction to go in.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

So, step one is in order.

I went through and cut out the junk from green, and I have everything operating at around the same power level, while flowing towards the yard. Its so frustrating these new sets: most of the cards are absolute junk in terms of efficiency, and you're lucky if you can get one card that represents <x> mechanic.

There are still a few cards that feel strange, but thats ok, as step 2 is to add sort of "surface level" decks. Instead of jamming graveyard decks down people's throat, I want there to be a more gradual evolution in card evaluation, where we have more recognizable, traditional looking decks, whose cards happen to be intimately connected with the graveyard.

This is what we had before:

RG: Wolves/ aura buffs
UG: P/T cards in hand buff, tempo
GW: wide aggro, control, self mill control

Which has to be restructured. The werewolf cards represent such an inefficient use of cubespace, that I cut them from green.

So...some surface archetypes.

G/W: Counters/auras
R/G: Auras/ramp
U/G: tempo

I'll have to think about this a little bit. The gravepulses are kind of annoying in the sense that they are really bad cantrips, that are very picky about the deck they want to go in. Any aura's based strategy, like the R/G deck, would actually really like to have a smoothing effect. Vessel of Nascancy might be the first spot I have to break singleton on, due to how bad these cards are.

I also don't really like pushing an aura's them in R/G and G/W, as this will just end up being a R/G/W deck by default. I would rather maximize deck space.

The U/G tempo deck I think I will just lift wholesale from the penny cube, as that was such a great find. I might add something like ohran viper though, as suiting that thing up seems fun.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

How do you feel abouy werewolves as green aggro cards in general? I could see how they could be akward next to another theme that wants a lot of spots. Still, you got my eyes opened, I remeber you talking fondly of them in the innistrad cube?



This for instance, I could se myself trying in a moderately low powered cube. Especially if youd run the temple bounceland khanland package.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Its pretty much just a space issue at this point, and I am open to other opinions.

The problem with the wolves is that are not enough generically good lords that promote gathering a critical mass of wolves, in the same way that the splicer's worked. So while I could run a bunch of them, and the cards might be independently fine, they don't really lead anywhere more interesting.

In retrospect, I should have used the splicer's to explain the design impetus: generic good stuff picks that put you into one synergy deck (splicer tribal), but could also support a deeper synergy (artifact).

Where the penny cube failed, however, in that regard, is that the deck's didn't become more exotic the deeper you went.

 

[japahn]

Werewolves have a very subtle synergy with instants, powerful activated abilities and flash. It's not a signpost like a lord, but a high density of these rewards having a high density of werewolves. You can add one or two obvious signposts too, but I wouldn't go over two because they are quite poisonous. One is probably the sweet spot for this deck to come together sometimes:

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I think the idea was that the tribes that should be present in this cube is the kind of tribes whose members can stand on their own as good stuff cards but can come together to form a much deeper synergistic deck when you hit critical mass of lords. Werewolves are probably sweet, especially with a bunch of good flash and instant spells, but they're probably not really fit for this cube's premise.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

How do you guys feel about ETBs?

This project has kind of put me squarely looking down ETB spam strategies, as this seems to be the natural trending point for any sort of incremental advantage cube.

Take a look at this partial list, which was supposed to be the baseline for a sort of modern cube. I filled out the good stuff core, and its disproportionately ETB creatures (there are a few eccentricities, like the return of signets). This seems to be a major focus of mythic era magic, along with planeswalkers.

I set up another test list, this time really abandoning the constraints of SOI and III as sets, in order to look at things more broadly. Looking at specific periods of magic, or specific limited sets, can be problamatic, as cube is so different of a format that its easy to lose critical aspects of the format in translation.

So, my idea is to shift away from ETBs, and shift towards LTBs. LTBs are inferior to ETBs, rarely focused on in cube formats, but still provide value in the form of an additional spell effect.

Critically, they are cards that demand synergy in order to fully achieve that value, as you need a secondary piece (sac. outlet) to really control the timing of your additional spell effect. Kokusho, the evening star is a very strong card, that represents much of the same advantages of an ETB, but is essentially obsoleted in cube today, because why work for your value, when there are literally dozens of cards you could be running that provide it instantly.

The ETBs that I can run, can be balanced out by echo, which actually makes a lot of sense from a card design standpoint: if you're going to give card advantage and tempo at the same time, doesn't it just make sense that there should be a tempo cost associated with this (echo) to balance things out?

And this seems to work, because these are again value cards due to being ETBs, but echo provides a natural way to feed the graveyard, which again supports synergy.

This is where I ended up, though this is all kind of new territory for me, and I'm struggling to find a comfortable power point.

I do know that I probably need to have the kamigawa dragons be apex cards, so potential decks that work around that point would be helpful. Also, haakon must be a thing, or else what are we even doing here?

In more eccentric news, it occurred to me that cumulative upkeep might be a spicy way to support potential delirium cards, but most of those are sadly terrible.

Also, these two seem like adorable buddies:

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Opinions? Refinement?

B/R WorldGorger​

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There is a very old breed of decks that are sort of proto aristocratic/pro grave crawler decks from ancient legacy. They revolved around exploiting nightmare triggers with sac outlets and value reanimation.​

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Its really peaked my interest, because it seems like a reasonable deck to include in terms of efficiency, and can evolve into a combo that seems fun. Since I have decided I now hate ETB spam, this is kind of how I want to enable blink decks.​

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The cards I really want to run are.​

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I kind of want there to be less of a focus on tokens, and more of a focus on recycling dudes for sacrifice value, which can also pressure.​

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And than I'm not sure exactly how I want to carve out the fringes of this. Most likely the standard sacrifice brigade




Reanimation squad




Lots of roughness here, and I'm still not sure how much inefficiency is too much inefficiency, since my entire model for evaluating creature strength is largely a function of mana cost and ETBs.

Prob need some tutors and to toss in rage thrower.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Update, we have a list thats not a complete disaster. Though I am kind of stuck fleshing out the last 5 archetype pairs.

List is here.

Its bouceland fueled again, as I wanted to have a format wide way to feed land strategies. I think the second two rows will have to be either fetches or shocks to buttress the aggro archetypes. Power level is higher and I am trying really hard to balance out the ETB effects.

Here is my white board.

RB: (1) madness->vampires aggro (2) reanimator control->world gorger combo
RG: (1) control->lands (2) auras stompy->double strike combo
UG: (1) Midrange auras->cards in hand matter (2)
GB: (1)self mill->recurrsive control (2) Ramp->Death cloud ramp
RW: (1) Aggro->double strike (2) aggro->evasive tokens, TOO SIMILAR
UB: (1) self mill control->DDLM combo (2) Tempo->undeath alchemist aggro
?UW:
?RU: (1) control->mill control/
?GW: (1) Humans/(2) lands
?BW: (1) Aggro->humans/

We have a sort of general value proposition for each color pair deck, and than try to max out on the number of deepeners, which I have conceptually explained here.

About self mill, I am running two copies of the perfect high powered cards to enable the sort of self-mill recycle decks:




The next question becomes, how do you enable self-mill in a higher powered environment? If our goal is to simply deplete the library to reuse a small pool of cards in the yard that you believe are sufficient to win the game with, some interesting design space opens.





this is also interesting with symmetrical draw and large scale draw-discard effects (which I admittedly don't know much about)

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Looking for some help cleaning this up. Work keeps on getting in the way.

Shuffled some lists arounds, and here we go.

Pretty close to being there, with just white lagging behind. Going for more of a low power rare feel, backed up with some uncommons.

The whole list is powered, again, by bounceland interactions, since they fuel value discard and madness, which feeds into the graveyard interactions, while at the same time also fueling landfall interactions. Its really hard to get away from them.

I broke singleton to encourage some tribal support.

First, there is the old splicer package, but I am cementing it in G/W/u with double master splicer and double vital splicer.

Than I have an adorable land creature tribal package in G/R/u



U/R has a landfall theme going in general; however, an early tidecaller, backed up by embodiments of insight can fold into the tempo focused U/G decks.

I've taken madness, rooted it into B/R, but also layered in the new hellbent incentive cards. I have jagged poppet sitting there too, but thats probably a little loose.





For U/R I'm pushing towards a sort of spells matter control deck





The basis of how these decks work, is you turtle up, than recur removal while drawing cards. Probably a little short here.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Do you think Precursor Golem is too much for this cube? With the various splicers it could be sweet

 

[ahadabans]

Blood Scrivener feels like a really solid payoff for hellbent, and it gives you redundancy with Asylum Visitor.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm fine with playing both cards, I am just not sure how well they play.

If I were a low power rare cube, would precursor golem be too strong (or blade splicer for that matter?).

 

[ahadabans]

IMO, yes. Precursor Golem is really really good unless you have a ton of ways to make the drawback matter. I once saw golem + reckless charge on an empty board. Not pretty. Fact is the drawback plays more as a benefit since you tend to build around the effect and your opponent has to react to the card. Either they answer 9 power or they die.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thats an insteresting thought; that it might play as a high power heroic card.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

I'm having a little trouble figuring the idea of this cube out. I've been working on an Innistrad cube myself, but this doesn't feel very 'Innistrad-ey.' Is it like... Innistrad in 'mechanical spirit?'

Edit: I meant a lot of the discussed card options seem less-than-flavorful.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm having a little trouble figuring the idea of this cube out. I've been working on an Innistrad cube myself, but this doesn't feel very 'Innistrad-ey.' Is it like... Innistrad in 'mechanical spirit?'

Edit: I meant a lot of the discussed card options seem less-than-flavorful.

Its doing its own thing, and isn't tied to innistrad in anyway. I'm more interested in layering themes in a progression to create depth.

I don't really like verbatim trying to port over limited or constructed relationships: you just give up so much, and that was born out during a lot of the earlier iterations of the cube.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Its doing its own thing, and isn't tied to innistrad in anyway. I'm more interested in layering themes in a progression to create depth.

I don't really like verbatim trying to port over limited or constructed relationships: you just give up so much, and that was born out during a lot of the earlier iterations of the cube.

I've actually run into a couple of interesting problems doing my own Inn cube. Old and New Innistrad do -not- play well together. I'm trying to keep it 'in set' at the moment for flavor reasons, but I'm having a decent amount of trouble wrangling it.


If I may suggest Aura/Equipment for U/W?

It's a theme that was pushed fairly well in the New Innistrad, mostly with:



Innistrad has always been about enchantment removal and equipment, however.





These are examples of all the 'choice' auras from the two sets, imo. They offer a good mix of offensive and defensive capabilities, and I think fleshing out a U/W Spirit/Aura theme isn't a half bad idea. Ways to flesh it out:

Angelic Destiny: For a higher-power but still very on theme card.



Are all examples of creatures that interact well with auras.

It also gives you an excuse to make Bruna actually playable

Just a thought.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Derp, I completely forgot to mention actual equipment.

Well, you know that the original innistrad loved countering creature types with cards like wooden stake at the like (and who can forget butcher's cleaver!). That translated into new innistrad with interesting equipment such as slayer's plate, stitcher's graft and true-faith censer.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

One of the problems is that the second you title anything an "innistrad cube" the automatic expectation is burning vengeance and spider spawning. Both of those decks function as shadows of their former selves without tons of support.

I like the W/x aura theme, but I think I would need to move it away from blue into another color. Once you leave the power level of blue's pacifism effects behind, it starts to look a lot more enticing for white to be recurring black or green auras/enchantments. It also starts to open up the possibility of running 1 or 2 of green's enchantress cards as a reward for aura recycling.

Green aura's are just so elegant:




Powerful effects that can feed the G/B delirium deck on demand/.

I kind of imagined G/W being more of a land based color, + some evasive flyer makers for the W/R deck's bushwhackers, but it might be nice to toss in a bow of nylea. As a tool box piece, its probably the best swiss army knife you could tutor up, and being able to recur it if you self mill it, would be really good. I kind of want the aura recursion plan to be about something more interesting than reusing removal and cast triggers.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

One of the problems is that the second you title anything an "innistrad cube" the automatic expectation is burning vengeance and spider spawning. Both of those decks function as shadows of their former selves without tons of support.

I like the W/x aura theme, but I think I would need to move it away from blue into another color. Once you leave the power level of blue's pacifism effects behind, it starts to look a lot more enticing for white to be recurring black or green auras/enchantments. It also starts to open up the possibility of running 1 or 2 of green's enchantress cards as a reward for aura recycling.

Green aura's are just so elegant:




Powerful effects that can feed the G/B delirium deck on demand/.

I kind of imagined G/W being more of a land based color, + some evasive flyer makers for the W/R deck's bushwhackers, but it might be nice to toss in a bow of nylea. As a tool box piece, its probably the best swiss army knife you could tutor up, and being able to recur it if you self mill it, would be really good. I kind of want the aura recursion plan to be about something more interesting than reusing removal and cast triggers.

I think I'm getting a little stuck on the whole 'Innistrad' thing. I need to think about the cube as Innistrad -mechanics-, not flavor, right?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm not even really a huge fan of thinking of it as innistrad mechanics: rather converting the bounty of gy tools we just got into something that works within the structure of cube. If that happens to mean an unusually higher % of innistrad cards or mechanics, so be it.

Thats an interesting idea though, to view cube design through the lens of top down design. I don't think any of us have really done that, instead focusing on cube mechanics.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

I'm not even really a huge fan of thinking of it as innistrad mechanics: rather converting the bounty of gy tools we just got into something that works within the structure of cube. If that happens to mean an unusually higher % of innistrad cards or mechanics, so be it.

Thats an interesting idea though, to view cube design through the lens of top down design. I don't think any of us have really done that, instead focusing on cube mechanics.

It's a different style, and lends itself to different attributes.

Here's an underappreciated card that may fit what you're looking for in G/B : Avenging Druid

Not that the word 'combat' is hilariously absent

 

[ahadabans]

Really liking how your list is evolving.

Might have missed discussion for or against, but what about Pale Rider of Trostad / Haakon, Stromgald Scourge? You've got discard in here, plus madness, and hellbent. If ever you had a list for Haakon, this feels like it. And on that thought, Cryptbreaker?

I'm not sure about that splicer doubling you have though. Talk about ETB offenders... But maybe it's OK with minimal/no blink support? I'm also thinking on the power level of Blade Splicer, so I might be off here on the power level of what you have.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Really liking how your list is evolving.

Might have missed discussion for or against, but what about Pale Rider of Trostad / Haakon, Stromgald Scourge? You've got discard in here, plus madness, and hellbent. If ever you had a list for Haakon, this feels like it. And on that thought, Cryptbreaker?

I'm not sure about that splicer doubling you have though. Talk about ETB offenders... But maybe it's OK with minimal/no blink support? I'm also thinking on the power level of Blade Splicer, so I might be off here on the power level of what you have.

The power level of the splicers here are actually pretty high, but I think the package is lower power than a x2 master/x2 wing splicer, and all of them are lower power than blade splicer.

If I run Haakon, should I go deep on knights? Or just stick with the tarfire/nameless inversion package.

I had some pretty disappointing experiences running Pale Rider in SOI limited, even in the madness decks, and am just not a believer in the card.

Am I making a mistake running these two?



I really love both cards, and am intrigued by the combo with saffi, but reveillark so often just ends up being a boring value engine, while sun titan has that giant vigilance body (though the ability to recur enchantments and artifacts is so cool).