HELP WANTED! (тȟᶒ Ůῇẗᶖƫȴәᶑ Ḉụḅẽ: A Journey of Wonder and Adventure)

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Lots and lots of creatures! No busted Titans / Wurmcoil Engines / Jittes! Tons of one and two drops!

I like the cut of your jib, sir.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Thank you! I started my cube a while ago, based on Evin Erwin's cube over at cubedrafting.com. I think this is a pretty bad idea, though it seems to be a common one. I'm still trying to shake out the cards that are in there because they've always been in there. Recently I made a big change, cutting swords, Geist of Saint Traft, Thrun, the Last Troll, Umezawa's Jitte. This hurt a little, but the cube is much better off (I even traded the Jitte away. I bought the last pack of Betrayers in my local shop and it was in there. I was kind of attached to it). The only card I am not sure about is Elspeth, Knight-Errant. I love Elspeth, mostly because I think very fondly on Alara. I keep reading that she's a first pick pretty much no matter what else is in the pack, and I don't want any cards like that. What do you think? Should I keep her out?

Also I'm trying to build a token archetype that will actually make Trostani, Selesnya's Voice good. She herself isn't in yet, but watch my list for changes if you're curious.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I have taken Elspeth out of my cube. She was a complete bomb in either aggro or control, and wasn't doing great things for my environment.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
While this is a little awkward since I can't actually see your list (Drive is blocked at work, and thus google docs is too), here's my watchlist. I just underwent a similar patch, though I left some stuff in.

Here's my current watchlist, organized in order of severity (In my opinion):
Wurmcoil Engine: 10/10
It's hard to think of a card that stops aggro colder. This, combined with the death trigger makes it incredibly hard to deal with.
Gideon Jura: 9/10
My cube has a high density of creatures, so Gideon is hardly ever +2ing on an empty board. Forcing your opponent to attack and making all the best trades turn after turn is incredibly crippling, let alone just being the best nekkrataal ever and beating for 6.
Grave Titan: 8/10
Nothing answers him but a hard wrath, and he is an incredibly fast clock.
Coalition Relic: 8/10
Maybe it's the density of insane 6 drops, but skipping ahead two turns like this AND fixing mana is insane. Also it synergises well with green cards, since the only thing more impressive than a turn 4 six drop is a turn 3 six drop.
Sword of Feast and Famine: 8/10
If black could kill artifacts this would be less of a problem, but having your whole deck blanked by a single card you can't possibly answer is the worst feeling. I'm a little more friendly with sword of light and shadow, since it requires a lot more work to be good. (Much like sun titan)
Elspeth, Knight Errant: 7/10
I'd be a lot more okay with her if the Angelic Blessing ability was a minus ability. As it is, doing what she does while only becoming harder to kill makes it play badly.
Umezawa's Jitte: 7/10
While still an insane card, Jitte's been a little more manageable with all the sac outlets to stop it from getting counters. I'm still a little worried though.
Maze of Ith: 7/10
Best described as a removal spell which can only act defensively, and synergises with other removal spells.
Sword of War and Peace: 7/10
Better protections than F&F, but both colors can deal with it and the trigger is less crippling.
Mother of Runes: 6/10
Sometimes she just blanks half your opponent's deck, but she can be manipulated into being vulnerable, like attacking with a dude to force her to give something protection, then using a killspell. Could be a candidate for removal though.
Batterskull: 6/10
I'll admit, I've died to beatdown with this card in play. I think a lot of the aggro decks in my cube go underneath it, or have artifact answers/chump blockers.
Also it has been stoneforged in literally 0 times :p I think I might have to go achievement hunting
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: 5/10
I'm amazed, but he hasn't been that oppressive in my games. He does the most work here essentially being unsummon with rebound. Maybe we're just doing it wrong.
Trechery: 5/10
Control magic is insane, but it's becoming worse and worse with the times. It's a strong card, but I don't it's oppressively so.
Balance: 4/10
For balance to be good you need to be a creatureless (ish) deck which dumps it's hand, which usually involves playing lots of artifact mana. Artifact mana which is not currently in those proportions in my cube! :p
Balance as Wrath, Discard 3 cards is probably a good and fair wrath, it doesn't have the insane card and tempo advantage that it's brethren do.

So mind that this is very context dependent: Jace gets more oppressive the less aggro there is, Grave Titan is insane in midrange-fests, etc.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
From that list, the one's I'm running now are Coalition Relic and Mother of Runes. I like relic because I want there to be a 5-color control deck every few drafts, and this card is really important to them. Otherwise I don't think it's oppressive or unfun in my cube. Mom always gets a groan when she comes down, but not because she's unbeatable. She's just something that is going to take a little work to get rid of.
I don't run JTMS because I don't have one, and I don't really see the need. I played it once in someone elses cube and it was a blast. Actually that was one of the drafts that really put me off Jitte. We played a game where he had Umezawa's Jitte and I had Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Contract from Below. Basically Jitte was so good that we still had a tough game, which was kinda crazy.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Yeah I kept jace and mom in as well. Jace I actually really love for the fact that while he is really strong, part of his auto-pick personality isn't because of that strength, it's because of the flexability.
I've seen decks play him and never brainstorm once, I've seen people play him and only + and ultimate him, he's been a draw engine, he does it all.

I really love that a blue/white tempo deck and a blue black control deck will be fighting over the same cards :p
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
for the longest time my cube didn't have any 3 color cards in because they just kept tabling.
Depending on how your mana is, he should be fine. It's a big aggressive reward in only somewhat aggressive colors after all.

He'e also pretty easy to handle with killspells, either on him or the lone attacking creature.
 

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I think Rafiq is on the fair side of things, if only because his restrictive casting cost keeps him from reaching all but the most dedicated drafters. For a while here, he was actually kind of a trap, because the good removal in my cube was so plentiful. So the Bant drafters would take Noble Hierarch and Rafiq early on, building around him, but just lose to the decks packing Terminate and Dismember.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Cool. Just made some big changes. They're on the opening page of the list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArD0L8O5X_TkdGEwUXN3UlQ1VDdvRWMxS3hTM3ZFVXc#gid=9
Main ideas: I added Gravecrawler aggro, proxied the Onslaught fetches, completely changed the white aggro section by getting rid of generic two drops and adding a second Accorder Paladin, a second Fencing Ace, two Gather the Townsfolks and two Champions of the Parish. I also just cut things down a lot to help make specific archetypes more draftable, rather than generic aggro or control.

I'm worried that I now have a really aggressive cube, and I may have really hurt control. Playing lots of cube will tell. I cut a bunch of early removal in an effort to help people land their Griffin Guides on their Fencing Aces. This might have gone too far. Anyway, we'll see.
I cut Tidings, which is really lame. There was a time when casting it in my cube usually sealed the game up for you, but now nobody can tap out without affecting the board. I think it's going to be even worse with the new aggro sections, so out it goes... Farewell!

Edit: The other thing I'm worried about is answer cards. Things that remove artifacts and enchantments. A while ago, when the swords were in my cube, and Batterskull, they were a good part of the environment. Pretty much every deck would have an artifact that needed answering, so it made interesting drafting knowing that you would need some answers to artifacts. Now, though, I took a lot of the really powerful cards, and the artifact removal is not so important. The thing is, I feel like aggro has to beat Vedalkin Shackles, but it feels like a waste of space to have all these answer cards for only a few problem artifacts. Maybe I'll remove a lot of them and make Shackles really hard to answer. Seems ok if I'm also worried that aggro is too good.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
We've had a few drafts now. There's been a few instances of RW aggro decks that work exactly as I planned: Accorder Paladins and tokens and Fencing Aces. Mikaeus the Lunarch turns out to be super awesome too, as is Goblin Bombardment. Actually this deck is so fast that I'm worried I need to find early plays for control to block or whatever. I just don't want these early plays to always be removal, cuz it really owns the auras I'm running.
Nobody's put Gravecrawler aggro together yet, but it will happen. We haven't drafted much.

Edit: The next thing to do is to add birthing pods. After drafting Alex Blanton's cube on cubetutor, I can't wait to try this out.
 

CML

Contributor
disenchant is poop, i don't ever wanna play with that card MD in any format. (even manic vandal is the stones in power cube though)

i do get a big chubby for mortify though. just go for modal stuff. even golg or rakdos charm are kinda maybe sorta almost OK (though probably not, just man up and do vindicates)
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Yeah I never got a vindicate because it's expensive :C I am proxying more and more stuff these days though, so I may add it
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I've been putting some thought into the disenchant problem and it might be worth doubling up on oblivion ring.

I can't remember how partial to custom cards you are, but I'm putting work in to make a bunch of those for people go play with. Maybe you could use a few of those?

I've also had troubles putting the gravecrawler deck together, people keep stealing gravecrawlers from me because they want B 2/1's.

Personal pod recomendation: mikaeus the unhallowed. Old Podfather is sweet.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Well I finally ended up cutting my custom cards naturally, so here's the list on cubetutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1461. Recent changes are a push to make durdly decks work, with value reanimation cards in black and Birthing Pods in green. Removal was way too common after the last change, when I cut lots of cards but not a single removal spell, so now it's very low. Probably too low. I'll count my removal spells and give you guys a percentage in a minute.

edit: 16% removal, counting bounce spells and cards like Nicol Bolas, Angel of Serenity, Angel of Despair, Mortarpod, Goblin Bombardment and Chandra, the Firebrand. Without these I'm at 13%. Seems about right?
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Just made a big update! For the +1/+1 counter archetype I've added lots of stuff. I've also doubled up on shocklands and fetchlands to support serious multicolor aggro decks (the ole Experiment One into Gore-House Chainwalker into Renegade Krasis into Cytoplast Root-Kin wait that's only two colors....)

I also put these cards on hold and we'll see if they are missed:
Opposition, Vedalken Shackles, Mimic Vat, the signets (I ran the four green ones), Fellwar Stone, Manic Vandal, Sex Monkeys and Leonin Relic-Warder
The remaining powerful artifacts are Crystal Shard, Coalition Relic, Grafted Wargear, and maybe Eldrazi Monument and Mindslaver. Also three Birthing Pods. Remaining artifact removal is: Acidic Slime, Qasali Pridemage, Putrefy, Thornscape Battlemage, Who//What//When//Where//Why, Oblivion Ring, Faith's Fetters, Beast Within, Necrotic Sliver, Angel of Despair, Engineering Explosives.
Maybe it's time I added Vindicate and Maelstrom Pulse?

Full update is the most recent three posts: http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/1461, all dated today.
 
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