Eric Chan's Modern cube (405)

Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Some of your comments are pretty prescient. I got some feedback last night that there wasn't enough defence against flyers, specifically in green.

Is this a problem that's common among other cubes? What green reach creatures are cubeable?



Ugh, most of these seem gross. And slow.
 
Lucre

Lucre

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Yeah man, I'm not sure about spiders, maybe there is just a really good one out there somewhere but I think green usually mediates that sort of thing by stealing from another colour. It's harder in your cube because of the glut of GGG spells but it's probably not thaaaaat hard. I think most cubes care about it less because whether your over the top thing has evasion or not is probably less of a problem for them.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

What is it about the other colours that don't have the problem? Flyers or removal? If its removal, then:



This feels better than the reach route, but arbor colossus is probably the best option. The other cards probably need some cute themes to get them to work.

Edit: ?

 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Yeah, part of it is that I'm not even sure if there's a real problem, despite the feedback from my players. I almost never draft less than three colours, so there's usually something somewhere to deal with pesky flyers. Now that I'm tossing in some incidental devotion support, though, I can see a case being made for running monogreen. I don't know if it's a problem I need to go out of my way to fix, though.

I remember this is how I dealt with obnoxious Spectral Procession tokens in my monogreen Standard deck years ago. Big blunt instrument.

 
Lucre

Lucre

I was just pointing it out because I think it's a neat point to keep in mind that fliers are like metagame better than they usually would be in your cube.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
This is probably true of most cubes, no? None of the Jund colours are really known for taking to the skies, but with cube environments being as fast as they are, this supposed "weakness" to flyers isn't the deciding factor for a game very often. Of all the times I've lost - and that's many - it's rare that I've thought to myself afterwards, "Gee, I wish I had more ways to block flyers!" More often, it's "I need a way to deal with that weenie swarm" or "Man, I have to figure out a way to push through all their walls and removal".

So - without meaning to sound too harsh - is this an actual problem, or another pure theorycraft exercise that has no basis in reality? I just did a quick check on CT, and I run ~43 flying creatures, while Waddell has ~39.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

It's hard to know without knowing the specifics of the feedback received. I could envisage frustration if somebody drafted three delver of secrets, flipped them and bounced and countered other stuff. Other than arbor colossus, polukranos and sylvan primordial your green spells by themselves can't interact with that and the player thought having something with reach would have helped them stabilise?

Green has to race or look to other colours to interact with flyers in your cube. Could be a problem against multiple squadron hawks, thundermaw hellkite etc. you also have griffin guide and herald of torment to take things to the air and give a giant clock.

I presume you don't have many mono green decks so is it about how much you can interact with creatures that you can't block and race? Ie how's your removal?

Of course, this person could have had a terrible deck or piloted it incorrectly and without knowing more specifics its all difficult.

Btw, pls let us know how you get on with hydra broodmaster, you've piqued my interest.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Hydra Broodmaster is boss. Whereas Rampaging Baloths never did very much for its cost, Broodmaster usually represents a must-answer threat. He spews a ton of power onto the board, but at a late enough point in the game alongside a high enough investment that it doesn't feel unfair to do so.

Between Polukranos, Arbor Colossus, and Broodmaster, I feel like green won out on the monstrosity lottery. Just a year ago, green ramp wasn't very interesting. While the archetype wasn't lacking in top-end finishers, it didn't have enough interesting mid-sized targets. Now, it's swimming in them. If green ramp is a supported strategy in your cube, I can't recommend these cards enough. Medium-sized threats that start out as decent bodies, but give you ways to sink your extra mana profitably the longer the game goes on, make for more rewarding gameplay than the hit-eight-mana-I-win spells. Not that you shouldn't run those, too!
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Truth be told, it's near the bottom of the pile. It's no Thragtusk or Wolfir Silverheart, and the {G}{G}{G} in its cost means it usually tables before it's picked up. I like it more than some of the alternatives at five, though. I know Vorapede is popular around these parts, but Arbor Colossus has done more work for us here. That probably has as much to do with environment as anything else - with no Birthing Pod shenanigans, and removal being a hair more expensive, Vorapede's longevity isn't as important as Colossus's raw power.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Is that from an actual draft? If so, thats a good sign, as you are running the absolute limit imo for delver flips.

This was my go at it, much more aggro-control:

U/R/w Delver aggro control from CubeTutor.com











Had an entreat also, really would have liked to have had a few X/W duals so I could run it, or a few more spells to run over creatures. This is pretty good threat density though, and can be reasonably controlling if it needs to shift roles.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Yes, this was my deck from a draft tonight. Haven't finished playing out all the matches yet, though - will probably do that over lunch the next few days. Young Pyromancer was the best she's ever been - she dropped a lot of power onto the board over the course of the evening.

Yup, white is a great addition to these spells matter / tempo decks! Having Geist of Saint Traft, or Ninja of the Deep Hours to go with white's one drops, is a real treat.

edit: an actual sample hand from tonight, on the draw G2, against UR midrange. keep or mull
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
How cheapy do you think you could cast treasure cruise on average with that list? I was wondering how visions would compare with cruise.
 
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