Card/Deck Grixis Treasures

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blacksmithy

With AFR joining the cube domain, i think this is an archetype we can finally look at developing.
There are many cards in these colors now that provide treasure tokens as a rider on a core effect, and a few cards that reward us for having treasures, or, more broadly- lots of mana that we only need for one big spell! how exciting!

Here’s my thoughts on a skeleton for the archetype, excluding what i’d call “really bad cards” and obvious power outliers like Ragavan, who just doesn’t go in the same power band as a cube pushing synergy archetypes.

enablers- decent cards that make Treasure
Captain Lannery Storm
Deadly Dispute
Dire Fleet Hoarder
Forsworn Paladin
Goldspan Dragon
Goldvein Pick
Kalain, Reclusive Painter
Magda, Brazen Outlaw
Plundering Barbarian
Prismari Command
Prosper, Tome-Bound
Sailor of Means
Shambling Ghast
Skullport Merchant

you’ll notice some of these are also payoffs, but i think it’s worthwhile to have more indirect payoffs too. i DONT recommend running expensive spells just for this purpose, but you can be a little more subtle by having spells with kicker or overload, X spells, spells with improvise, and perhaps even spells with evoke so that players can load their deck with payoffs without screwing up their curve.

this archetype can also tie into Artifacts or Tokens or Aristocrats pretty easily.

what do you think?
 
B

blacksmithy

some that come to mind immediately for me are Cyclonic Rift, Sublime Epiphany, Upheaval and Wildfire (lol), Battle at the Bridge, Profane Command, Burst Lightning, Roil Eruption, Nullpriest of Oblivion, Sea Gate Stormcaller, Cut//Ribbons, and the Inscriptions.
 
japahn

japahn

Being a fan of KHM's 5 color aggro Goldvein Pick into splashed bombs, I'm all for it. Not sure you can make it worth it just with kicker though, as they are costed as to serve as mana sinks rather than plan As. The deck gets more appealing when you have stuff like decent 5-drops and powerful 7-drops to ramp into.

I'm also a bit skeptical that it'd be worth it in a high fixing environment, since treasures get much less appealing when they aren't enabling plays your deck otherwise couldn't afford.
 
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japahn said:
I'm also a bit skeptical that it'd be worth it in a high fixing environment, since treasures get much less appealing when they aren't enabling plays your deck otherwise couldn't afford.
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This is a really good point. In a high fixing environment the treasures would have to work purely as a ramping function. In a cube with moderate fixing, the deck could also benefit from the any-colors angle to get some actual advantage.

Also agree that you would want actually expensive things as a signpost for the archetype, not just flexibly costed things that other decks would also happily play.
 
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blacksmithy

yeah i wouldn’t personally run this in my cube as basically everything costs 3 or less and fixing is stupid good.
but i think for a lot of mid power synergy cubes this is a cool option for grixis
 
japahn

japahn

I really want to run Skullport Merchant. It's a beautiful card that has a lot of interesting decisions and hook into other archetypes. Unfortunately, most of the other additions don't really appeal to me for the Elegant Cube. Some are too strong, like Goldspan Dragon and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, some are too weak and Magda, Brazen Outlaw and Captain Lannery Storm are quite inelegant when the decks they signal aren't supported.

I do run Goldvein Pick, and I could see running Prismari Command and maaaybe Forsworn Paladin, Shambling Ghast and Dire Fleet Hoarder. It could be a minor black theme in my cube, but I think I'll test those cards in AFG limited before I try this.
 
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blacksmithy

i like the convergence of treasures and converge, hadn’t thought of that!
just the other day i used an Abundant Growth to hit X=4 on Kaleidoscorch in a Jund deck.
(i would caution that Painful Truths is super high power if you can actually get all 3 cards out of it reliably. it’s a high pick in my environment.)

also, i would wager that Treasures is easier to work into an environment if you’re already running a couple of the micro archetypes adjacent to it, like the aforementioned Artifacts or Aristocrats.
 
japahn

japahn

Hmm...


I was looking for space to expand artifacts into black, this may be just it.

Yeah, Painful Truths is quite good. Not sure I'd call it super high power since you sacrifice so much tempo, but I did remove it for being too good in my cube.
 
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I've also had a lot of luck with Painful Truths in the past. Perfectly serviceable black pain-for-draw spell

As mentioned, making sure there are artifact themes to tie into would be pretty important I think.


And if the archetype goes deep, then the treasure version of faithless looting would be a consideration. It would be like an on-color mana bauble.


Edit: Can't forget "gold" tokens ;)
 
japahn

japahn

japahn

japahn

That's the idea for my part. You need to work to make your treasures (Goldvein Pick has to connect, Magda is a 2/1 that has to crash into blockers, Treasure Map needs to scry several times, Shambling Ghast and Dire Fleet Hoarder have to die). The tricolor dragon splash is your reward for doing so, and at the same time the treasures mitigate issues with mana screw in less stellar draws and create decision points in which you have to decide whether to crack a treasure to accelerate removal, for example.

I don't like 5c goodstuff when there's little cost in doing so (and to be honest, there are not that many formats in which that's true) because the manabase is so smooth. The treasure deck does not take nonbasics from other decks, though it does take multicolored cards, and it needs to be built with base one or two colors.
 
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Yeah there aren't any treasure producers that allow you to freely splash whatever you want. They don't produce treasures efficiently or consistently enough to be treated like that. Splashing for a Bring to Light would definitely be a possibility, but you aren't just tossing in multicolored cards willy nilly. It's a grixis* deck powering it's game plan with treasure artifacts, not a 5C deck with bomb++ fixing.

*so far being brainstormed as grixis.
 
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Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Treasure Map is the original and best Treasure card, it's an amazing design and belongs in basically any Cube IMO. Galazeth Prismari is worth a mention too if you want an Urza-style effect that's less pushed and more targeted.

Here's a sketch of a version that's ok with stuff like Ragavan:









Urza/Galazeth/Statuary let you build towards a big finish (Overload spells, Magma Opus, Blast from the Past) and Manufactor lets you do some dirty stuff too
 
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