Eric Chan's Modern cube (405)

[Lucre]

That's the thing, I ain't got no cube, I just tool around with other people's sometimes. It's been a pretty mixed bag really.

I think part of my love for that card comes from a different age too.

At the end of the day if people aren't playing it, it isn't a good card for your cube. It's not an obvious card for any deck really but it certainly works in a lot of them in my experience.

I really love how non committal it is. It just does it's thing. Splashable, non-blue 2cc card draw. Don't need to wait on a creature, don't need to set anything up really. If each of the things you draw are worth the card they were printed on you are a happy camper. By the time I want more gas or need more answers I'm sure I've got 4-5 mana anyway, or I soon will because I just drew 2 cards.

I think the only times it really saw standard play were in affinity decks that were playing extra black sources anyway for something (disciples removal etc) and as a splash in some of the popular midranged red deck. I think I'm certainly playing it in an aggro deck (among other kinds). It reminds me of playing the red deck splash blue for things like snapcaster, visions, draw-sevens etc except playing the black red deck is more likely to get you more synergistic aggressive dudes and cards that will give you more gas very cheap for some of your HP. I also like rager and everything else here of course but rager has been leaving a really bad taste in my mouth of late because the last few times I played him or seen him played he's had a hard time taking things with him to the grave. Still doesn't make him bad, I think I'm just feeling a little disappointed because he used to be a favourite. I used to take horrors to the casual sunday tribal tournament. You ever drawn a game with a faceless butcher loop?

Anyway, I'm rambling again. I understand where you are coming from and I don't mean to come off as a salesman. I think part of that is my wariness of blue of late and wanting to find ways to decentralize some of it's abilities. It really has a relative monopoly on doing the things that just about every deck wants to do and I'm always excited when I see ways to give other colours these cheap "makes your deck better" type of cards. Especially nowadays when blue has great creatures on most drops too. I'm becoming a lil lobbyist.

 

[Eric Chan]

No worries at all! That's what this forum is for, and divergent viewpoints are always welcome. From a personal standpoint, I'm less interested in spreading the wealth of card drawers, only because other colours have myriad ways to generate their own two-for-ones (Squadron Hawk, Shriekmaw, Arc Trail, and Cultivate, just off the top of my head). Blue can own the domain of card draw and card filtering here, and I'm ok with that. What I'd be more interested in is dishing out counterspells to at least one other colour. Mana Tithe is a start, but I'd love it if people had to consider open mana of any colour other than blue more often.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I think a Black 2cmc catalog could be sweet. Sign in Mind?

How has rager been for you? He's always seemed really mediocre to me, and he got cut a while back with no sadness.

Part of the problem is (and the channelfireball guys really got into the meat of this) is that those are all midrange cards, while blue's card draw stuff is almost all control cards (I run tidings, and that's a hell of a control card), and midrange typically isn't a great place to be in cube; By it's nature it's unfocused.

The only card black has that nets you more than 2 of something is Skeletal Scrying (which you don't have access to, now that I think of it) and that card HURTS.
Phyrexian arena can, but the more aggro focused enviornments become (just naturally with the increasing quality of creatures, not really by any concious effort on our part) the less time you have to leverage that card.

Lastly, Lucas: I'm also not really comfortable playing it in the later turns either, even after pressure has slowed down. The last thing I wanna do is inadvertently put myself in burn range. I'm contemplating making a version that GAINS LIFE instead, and I might try it. Same cost, everything. That says a lot.

 

[Lucre]

That card sounds amazing chris! Take that Revelation! We don't need you anymore.

I'm totally surprised by that because I've always been the person pushing for more aggro lower curves and lower colour commitment and I hardly ever had trouble with pay life effects in your cubes unless I was playing wonky control decks with no way to regain it. With cards like thragtusk wandering around these days and all the gems we've gotten since ravnica block that tacked on lifegain to compensate for painful manabases it seems like it's a really good time to at least try it again. But I'm not arguing anymore really, I'm just taking a walk down memory lane.

Remember when Phyrexian Processor made it into like every deck? That card was such a swingy beating.

 

[LordOfTexas]

The discussion has moved away from the original post, but I wanted to address the thought of reducing powerful, cheap removal like Path, Doom Blade, etc. I've had the same inclination with my cube, I believe too much cheap removal makes drafting the "5 color kill spells and good stuff" deck too easy in the average cube.

The (valid) concern that was raised was that aggressive decks love a cheap removal spell as well - wouldn't we be hurting aggro decks by cutting cheap removal? Yes, but I think limiting cheap, instant-speed removal might give another strategy room to breathe - creature auras (and similar "buff" cards in the style of Travel Preparations or Ghor-Clan Rampager).

We saw the same phenomenon in Gatecrash - in limited formats with tons of cheap removal, Madcap Skills would regularly wheel, and rightfully so. But in a format where the best removal spell was a sorcery-speed shock - Madcap Skills and other creature-enhancement strategies were first-pickable.

The problem with most cubes is that even if they limited cheap instant speed removal, a tendency is to shove in a million mass removal spells, since those tend to be constructed powerhouses. Mass removal may need to be limited as well before creature auras can come out to play.

Even if you don't go as far as including Madcap Skills or Angelic Destiny in your cube, I think cutting some instant-speed removal for sorcery-speed removal is a good way to help aggro breathe.

 

[Eric Chan]

Welcome to the forums, LoT. And a stellar first post! If you're willing to share, I'd love to take a look at your list, because I feel like I have a lot to learn about cube environments where the power level of cheap, universal removal is dialed back a notch. Like you, I'd love to inch my cube closer to a traditional limited format, where creature combat is the bread and butter of player interaction, and combat tricks aren't outright embarrassing. I'm still at the point where I can't really consider adding auras with a straight face, but I'm hoping that my tune will change slowly over time. But if Ghor-Clan Rampager, or better yet, something like Briarhorn, were viable in my cube, I'd be all smiles.

Again, welcome, and we're very glad to have you here on the board!

 

[CML]

hi LoT, welcome to the forum!

some of your post makes no sense. here is why.

-mugging was a hard counter to madcap. the gtc removal was fairly decent.
-how can you possibly draft 5c removal in the average cube when the fixing options are so sparse and mediocre? spot removal also isn't great against the average NWO 'value' creature like thragtusk. the 5cc fallacy is absurd (it's impossible to support as more than a fringe thing in any limited format, including cube, given the nature of their manabases) and it's used as a pretext for the idiotic dearth of fixing in full-block RTR limited (see zac hill's most recent fib on the mothership) as well as said dearth in conventional cube and dglkjfgjldfkgjl. anyway i've spilled enough ink on the topic elsewhere.

some of your post i'm totally down with:

-too much mass removal is indeed bad design, i think i'm gonna make a thread about my preferences for such effects. 10 or so in a 360 is about right IMO.
-eric, you gotta listen to LoT and add a few buffing auras. in regular draft formats (primarily GTC) i hated these since they either resulted in a blowout or a quick win, and they dovetail with the loathsome mechanic hexproof. in constructed bant hexproof, nivmagus, and modern bogle are three of the most miserable decks to play, ever.
however, wizards r&d has long been aware of such complaints and has tried to fix the all-or-nothing design flaw in a couple of ways. the first is CIP effects -- these were pioneered in original RGD block, so you got stuff like Flight of Fancy and cube staple Faith's Fetters. the second is recursion, and though this has been a thing since Urza block(!) since RGD was the greatest i should point to Moldervine Cloak.

anyway, rancor and angelic destiny are the only buffing auras i run, but something like cloak isn't unreasonable (esp. since dredge is a blast). you could also toss in some old faves like dillo cloak or newfangled stuff like gift of orzhova.

also, eric, how is rampager anything but amazing everywhere always?

 

[LordOfTexas]

Thanks Eric! My (out-of-date) cube list is here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/team-waynedale-450-unpowered/

As you can see, I've had the "inclination" to change it, but haven't done it yet - my list is still heavy on removal, a design choice that I think a lot of first-time cube designers make when including cards on power level alone. It's also a few sets out of date because I haven't been able to put together an update recently (the cube was actually a gift to my group of friends who currently live a few hours away from me - I play with it when I'm in town, which recently hasn't been that often.)

I don't think that cube list will ever be at the point where combat tricks will be viable, and I'm not sure it should be tuned to that point - we have a ton of fun drafting it just the way it is.

To that point, I've been brainstorming a custom set, separate from my existing cube, to be designed/balanced somewhere between a current-era limited set and the typical cube. Emphases: Synergy over raw power, cross-archetype interactions and modularity, and skill-testing interactive play with some focus on the combat step. I've got a basic list in my head but once I put it to Excel or cubetutor, I'll post it here

 

[Eric Chan]

Great! Yeah, my apologies for not being clear - I meant that you should start a thread for your own cube list, so that it gets the attention and feedback that it deserves. Being buried a few pages deep in my cube list thread probably won't do you any favours. But since it sounds like you're not actively maintaining that list, I suppose you can wait until you get your new cube together, or at least your vision for it. I'd be very interested to see that new cube as it takes shape, so please keep us informed in a thread of your own!

To your point about the cube being fun the way it is, I have to say that I agree completely with that sentiment. While part of me wants to make plain ol' Giant Growth viable, I know that means dialing the knob way, way down on both spot removal and on creature quality. That might bring the environment too close to regular limited for my taste. For now, we're enjoying the relatively high power that manifests itself in your typical cube match, and I don't think I could really justify to my group why they can't have all the nice things. I think that, like you, a second, deliberately lower-powered cube might be the right call at some point down the road. That way, we could break out either style of draft format whenever the occasion presents itself.

 

[LordOfTexas]

hi LoT, welcome to the forum!

-mugging was a hard counter to madcap. the gtc removal was fairly decent.

Other than AVR, what limited format has had worse removal at common? Removal has definitely gotten worse in the past few years of limited sets. Look at M12 - Shock, Incinerate, Chandra's Outrage all at common! Mugging was good against Madcap but that wasn't my point - a lot of the removal was too slow or janky to deal with an enchanted creature before it killed you, and instant speed removal specifically holds down combat tricks.

-how can you possibly draft 5c removal in the average cube when the fixing options are so sparse and mediocre? spot removal also isn't great against the average NWO 'value' creature like thragtusk. the 5cc fallacy is absurd (it's impossible to support as more than a fringe thing in any limited format, including cube, given the nature of their manabases) and it's used as a pretext for the idiotic dearth of fixing in full-block RTR limited (see zac hill's most recent fib on the mothership) as well as said dearth in conventional cube and dglkjfgjldfkgjl. anyway i've spilled enough ink on the topic elsewhere.

I don't use 5CC to mean "actual 5 colors evenly", it's usually something like "Grixis splashing a Path and a Thragtusk". I don't know what you're thinking of as "the average cube", but my cube runs ~50 color-fixing nonbasics in a 450, plus several fixing rocks. Should the "ideal cube" be running more? Also, I'm not talking about nuking Thragtusks here, we're talking about nuking Stormfront Pegasus and the like. There are good 1-2CC aggro creatures that are resistant to removal, but not enough to build a singleton cube around without including dorks that are removal-vulnerable.

some of your post i'm totally down with:

-too much mass removal is indeed bad design, i think i'm gonna make a thread about my preferences for such effects. 10 or so in a 360 is about right IMO.
-eric, you gotta listen to LoT and add a few buffing auras. in regular draft formats (primarily GTC) i hated these since they either resulted in a blowout or a quick win, and they dovetail with the loathsome mechanic hexproof. in constructed bant hexproof, nivmagus, and modern bogle are three of the most miserable decks to play, ever.
however, wizards r&d has long been aware of such complaints and has tried to fix the all-or-nothing design flaw in a couple of ways. the first is CIP effects -- these were pioneered in original RGD block, so you got stuff like Flight of Fancy and cube staple Faith's Fetters. the second is recursion, and though this has been a thing since Urza block(!) since RGD was the greatest i should point to Moldervine Cloak.

anyway, rancor and angelic destiny are the only buffing auras i run, but something like cloak isn't unreasonable (esp. since dredge is a blast). you could also toss in some old faves like dillo cloak or newfangled stuff like gift of orzhova.

also, eric, how is rampager anything but amazing everywhere always?

If auras lead to some blowouts or quick wins, I'm ok with that for logistics purposes. Not every match needs to be an hour-long epic that holds up the next round, and not every draft needs to last until 4AM!

 

[Eric Chan]

-eric, you gotta listen to LoT and add a few buffing auras. in regular draft formats (primarily GTC) i hated these since they either resulted in a blowout or a quick win, and they dovetail with the loathsome mechanic hexproof. in constructed bant hexproof, nivmagus, and modern bogle are three of the most miserable decks to play, ever.
however, wizards r&d has long been aware of such complaints and has tried to fix the all-or-nothing design flaw in a couple of ways. the first is CIP effects -- these were pioneered in original RGD block, so you got stuff like Flight of Fancy and cube staple Faith's Fetters. the second is recursion, and though this has been a thing since Urza block(!) since RGD was the greatest i should point to Moldervine Cloak.

anyway, rancor and angelic destiny are the only buffing auras i run, but something like cloak isn't unreasonable (esp. since dredge is a blast). you could also toss in some old faves like dillo cloak or newfangled stuff like gift of orzhova.

also, eric, how is rampager anything but amazing everywhere always?

I kind of do want to run the odd aura here and there, but even with Path to Exile and Dismember recently escorted out of my list, removal on the whole is still plenty strong. Strong enough, anyways, that I see the act of plopping an aura down as just asking to be blown out. I've actually seriously considered Spectral Flight more than once, and something dumb and cheap like Volcanic Strength has also crossed my mind. But stuff like Shock, Journey to Nowhere, Repeal, and Tragic Slip are still plentiful, so other than Rancor, I haven't really dared to toss any more auras into my list. I dunno. Should I just take the plunge?

I've always viewed Angelic Destiny as something of a curious circus act. How's it been in your cube?

Ghor-Clan is a victim of numbers here more than anything, and it was poor wording on my part to imply that it isn't good enough for cube, because it certainly is. Bloodbraid Elf and Kird Ape occupy my Gruul aggro slots at the moment, but if either one ever takes a seat on the bench, Rampager will be the first one inserted into the lineup.

 

[CML]

LoT--

agreed gtc removal was pretty sparse, you're right about the effect madcap had on games and i apologize for my tendentious misreading. i do think it was at a premium mainly because the creatures were beaters that demanded an answer as opposed to durdlers that would accrue value through cipt effects and activated abilities -- like if you look at the original RGD block, the removal was SO GOOD compared to the new one, but not much better in the format because the creatures as durdlers were less vulnerable to it.

50/450 is an uncommonly huge amount and i love it. i personally run more (60/405 or so + 5 more in utility draft) but everyone else runs fewer. as for how much you should have in your ideal cube, you know better than i -- and you know by trying different configurations! -- but 50/450 seems super-reasonable.

nuking pegasus IMO is a good idea. that card is terrible. i think there's enough little dudes to support aggro very well in a 450-card cube at singleton, but then multicolor aggro has to be a thing, so then you have to add in a lot of fixing (which conveniently reduces the number of spell slots), which will also effectively lower the curve. this is a good example of how one design choice leads to a bunch of unintended effects (in this case, i love them all.)

fair point about the 1hr long games, i mean, i'm as big a fan of goblin guide as the next guy, and my best constructed results are with mono-colored aggro.

EriC--

destiny is awesome. it hits really hard. think of it as sublime archangel -- you can get blown out or time-walked in combat, but then it's time to suit up another dork and OMG he's huge now. here my constructed experience (ok, netdecking in this case) helped me determine i wanted that badgirl in there.

i think your gruul aggro team needs more players ;D

 

[Chris Taylor]

I can't recommend rampager enough, now THAT is a pump spell. (Similarly but not entirely so, predator's strike could be cool for similar reasons. I suspect it's too weak though)
As a longtime fan of moldervine cloak, it's okay but not great. I really wish it didn't cost you a draw step to regrow it, so at one point I made a version with "landfall: regrow it", and it was alright.

One thing I gotta emphasize is that the speed and abundance of your removal are different things. If everything is sorcery speed auras are at least okay, since you (usually) still get a swing in.
Abundance is just something every cube designer is faced with. My own personal numbers:

• 3% sweepers (~10 @360) means they NEVER wheel. I'm being lenient with sweeper here, since Disk and O-Stone aren't quite in the same league as Wrath, Damnnation, and Rolling earthquake, but be reasonable. This does make control hard to pull off, since the multi-sweeper draft is quite hard to pull off. Andrew Cooperfaus espouses 2% (citation needed) but after trying it I found control just had a huge problem.
• 12% removal (~43 @360) is pretty rare, but each drafter can expect 2-3 removal spells per draft, less if someone is hoarding them. It's actually a huge problem for black I'm puzzling out right now, since black control relies in a density of kill spells to survive and take over the game.
• 10-15% natural fixing (~36-54 @360) is my comfort zone for fixing, and my personal cube hovers at around 12 right now.

Typically CML, the 5CC deck usually arises from an abundance of artifact mana or fixing lands, but not always. Sometimes this happens because of a decision on the designers part, or sometimes it's because the drafters don't care too much for lands. I have a guy in my group who forces it every week, and usually ends up with 13 nonbasic brews. Good old Inferno Titan/Cryptic Command/Abrupt Decay/Path to Exile deck (Actual sample opener)
It's part of the reason I switched from signets to talismans actually, as one of the things I didn't like about RGD was the ability to easily splash not only a color, but a guild. (Izzet splashing Pillory of the Sleepless off 3 sources shouldn't happen)

 

[CML]

i am not a mana rock dude (surely not a signet dude) but i am a land dude!

 

[Eric Chan]

Part of the problem is (and the channelfireball guys really got into the meat of this) is that those are all midrange cards, while blue's card draw stuff is almost all control cards (I run tidings, and that's a hell of a control card), and midrange typically isn't a great place to be in cube; By it's nature it's unfocused.

I missed this earlier, but I wanted to respond to the part about blue card draw in particular. You'll get no argument from me about Tidings; the only thing I love more than a draw-two is an expensive draw-four. What I've noticed, though, is that the advent of planeswalkers has all but obsoleted your traditional blue sorcery speed card drawer. I mean, nowadays, if I want to fill up my hand, I've got a choice between Jace, Jace, Jace, and Jace. Okay, well, maybe not Jace. He's bad for cube. But you know what I mean.

It's gotten to the point where I first had to reluctantly cut Foresee, another personal favourite, because it wasn't making anybody's control decks anymore. The last straw was when I couldn't jam Tidings into my UW control deck, because Gideon's fat butt was taking up all the space. After that, I knew all the "You draw _ cards" spells had to go. So I don't really run what you'd call blue card draw anymore, but in reality, not that much has changed. Our blue players are still drawing themselves a ton of cards.

 

[Lucre]

I actually thought jace's ingenuity was a really cool card when I first saw it.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Interesting thoughts Eric. I haven't gone quite that far myself, and I am holding back on walkers. I think my point stands in that Black has no card drawing walkers (Man how much would a walker with Diabolic Tutor as a + ability cost?) and no large draw of it's own.

Also, an interesting point is that Tidings is better when you're behind, and Jace et al are better when you're ahead.

 

[Lucre]

Interesting thoughts Eric. I haven't gone quite that far myself, and I am holding back on walkers. I think my point stands in that Black has no card drawing walkers (Man how much would a walker with Diabolic Tutor as a + ability cost?) and no large draw of it's own.

Also, an interesting point is that Tidings is better when you're behind, and Jace et al are better when you're ahead.

You can get more out of your walker if you are ahead but the recent jace and tamy are great when behind even if you are digging, that's probably a lot of life and a lot of cards you are seeing. Not that their +1 abilities are bad in a fix either.

Other bit reminds me of the planeswalker I dreamed up on the facebook group ages back

1B
Planeswalker -
+1: Sacrifice a creature if a creature was put into the graveyard this turn, draw a card.
-2: Draw a card then lose 2 life
-4: Target player sacrifices a creature, discards a card and loses 2 life.
2HP

It's so weird coming back to playing magic a little more often and realizing I sorta have to rely on walkers for extra cards these days. I guess that's power creep for ya right? I'll always remember my old pals like Exclude, Krosan Tusker, Night's Whisper ahhaha or even gush or big daddy Oppertuity. What a blowout that guy was if you were not dead for wasting 6 mana.

 

[CML]

whisper and exclude haven't stopped being houses, hard to imagine them printing the former and impossible to imagine them printing the latter for standard these days. exclude as a common too, just fucking awesome.

one thing i've noticed is that i like cube to feel more like constructed, so mine has pretty much the highest concentration of colorless non-basics, red beaters, green 1-mana dorks. for blue this takes the form of AS MANY COUNTERS AS POSSIBLE!!!

eric, i'm not with you on that obsolescence. deep analysis is a far stronger card than jace, architect of thought. tidings isn't all that much worse than tamiyo, the moon sage. jace beleren is a terrific card, but barely better than all-time great draft common compulsive research.

 

[Chris Taylor]

By the way, Exclude: Bone to Ash. Just sayin

 

[Lucre]

Isn't that a worse dismiss?

 

[Jason Waddell]

I had Exclude at 420. It was a fun counterspell to play with in my opinion.

 

[Chris Taylor]

It's a worse lot of things

 

[Jason Waddell]

[M]y cube runs ~50 color-fixing nonbasics in a 450, plus several fixing rocks. Should the "ideal cube" be running more?

I don't think there's an answer to this. It depends on a couple dozen (or more) variables. Density of gold spells, density of hybrid spells, cost of sweepers, speed of aggro decks, critical turn of control decks, number and strength of colorless cards, etc.

For what it's worth my current cube runs in the ballpark of ~40 fixers of 360 and it feels like a good amount for my current configuration. I could imagine running much fewer, but certainly not in an environment with Tier 1 control spells.

 

[CML]

re. fixing -- i've mentioned elsewhere that all my cube's design problems melted away when i raised the power level of my fixing (a big thank you to my LGS owner for shipping me these nice proxies and convincing me to try fetches and duals):

-it lowered the effective curve
-it let aggro hit its colors starting on t1
-it enabled more cross-color synergy
-fringe bennys like more lands = fewer bad spells run and fewer bad spells drafted that need to be cut, etc.
-other stuff i'm forgetting

however aberrant my advocacy of a flat power curve is, jason's fixing section at least embodies it. it's small and sleek; no slots are wasted; the power of the cards accomplishes in 40 slots what it would take a singleton cube 50-60 slots to do. i like it a lot, but then observe how i run fixers far worse than fetch, shock, dual -- i guess i like a little power curve with my fixing; i'm kind of a hypocrite.

i'm gonna lift the discussion about 'first-picks' and make it have its own thread