Nanonox's 1vs1 cube

[Nanonox]

Wanted to run a few swaps by you folks as I am considering some changes in Red.

Talking with Inscho confirmed some of my thoughts about Red cards I am running that should probably go.



These are situationally very powerful cards but they are also narrow and difficult to support. The random discard and the hit on card advantage means things can go poorly very quickly sometimes.

So here are some options to consider. Feel free to suggest your own if you have something cool in mind!

Storm



I keep coming back to Glimpse because I think the card is so versatile. Draw, token maker and/or ramp depending on your needs. With Esper: Valigarmanda, Big Red decks are looking legit. Eruption is a cool payoff, because you don't need a ton of spells to feel good about casting it.

As a third slot in this package, I could see a few neat cards



There aren't a ton of worthwhile expensive targets in the cube currently and I'm not sure I want to add Magma Opus or something to make it work. Casting a stocked GY is pretty nice though and this even triggers Storm.



Is Storm too convoluted? How about a free 4 to the face! This closes games out nicely in various decks and is a classic Red aggro card. Flare of Duplication becomes pretty valuable in this context too.



I like the idea of a Storm card affecting the board. In a traditional combo deck, you need to go off pretty hard to make this impactful enough, but I could see it in a more aggressive prowess-aggro type deck.

There is also Seething Song, but it's very one dimensional and in the past I haven't been impressed with straight up rituals.

Discard



I don't actually quite know what to think of this package. What I do know is that Artist's Talent and Rydia are cracked in this cube! Both let you cycle through a huge chunk of your deck since you will be casting a lot of noncreature spells and putting tons of lands into play. They likely won't find themselves in the same deck, but that is where the Monument comes in to tie the room together.

What I like about this set of cards is that I don't have an exact plan or deck in mind. They are open-ended enough that I am sure drafters will surprise me with some novel combos.

These open up some other avenues like further pushing discard aggro with these two (the Ravager should already be in tbh)



Or maybe a land combo angle



The Summon works well with all the discarding and with cards like Squandered Resources, whereas Scapeshift is more for Second Sunrise. Titan is also a saga for Rydia's second ability for what it's worth.

Role players



These are the first two that come to mind. Not a super compelling package, but one that would play well.

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I am leaning towards the discard package because it's pretty unique for this cube and opens up some decks and cross-synergy potential. Thoughts?

 

[Nanonox]

I decided to go with Monument and Rydia and they have proven rather easy to slot into decks and they look really good in them too!

First a couple of Monument decks that look quite different



Monument looks fantastic next to Jeskai Ascendency. It becomes trivial to trigger it. The other discard payoffs work nicely with the Monument and it gives me that extra density that I was looking for. Being colorless makes me less reliant on Red and Black and can instead use it alongside Currency Converter and Containment Construct as the build arounds.



In a more controlling reanimator shell, drawing extra cards and having more mana is great! All your removal should let you drop Monument on turn 3 on a creature-light board.

Rydia has applications in fast and slow decks as these two showcase.



In this madness aggro deck, Rydia is a perfect enabler. It comes down early and isn't difficult to trigger every turn thanks to Wrenn and Six or Elvish Reclaimer. Fetches let you trigger Madness whenever you want which opens up unique lines of play.




If this is what 5 color decks look like in this cube, I'm ok with that!

This combo deck uses land sacrifice and recursion as ways to generate mana, card filtering, damage, artifacts or mill. Rydia let's you blaze through your deck to find the right piece to complete your engine. I love that Bloodghast and Springheart Nantuko are the link that ties sacrifice and lands in this deck, opening up some really cool lines and the type of archetype crossover I want to curate.

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Trying to downsize my cheat targets in terms of mana value so that more decks can potentially use them.

Currently run



I like Battleball. At 7 mana, it's somewhat achievable and offers something unique: reach in case of a board stall and blockers to defend against a fast start.

I like what Triplicate Titan offers: a resilient fatty that can get sacrificed. Wurmcoil Engine does something similar for 6 mana which is very tempting, but I am not a fan of the lifelink here. Aggressive decks already have to contend with the leftover bodies once they answer Wurmcoil, one of which has lifelink too! For that reason, I am not going to make the switch.

On the other hand, I think Sundering Titan has to go. Getting a fatty cheated into play can feel unfair at times, but if that fatty also wipes out all of your lands? That's pretty tilting and removes a lot of room to maneuver out of the situation. I'll be opting for this one instead



Fleshgorger's lack of ETB is mitigated by a non-negligeable slap in the face if you want to answer it. It also has the upside of being a prime target for blink decks. Lifelink is dangerous on such a huge body, but at the same time, once you answer it you are good to go, unlike Wurmcoil.

So basically only one fatty is getting swapped, but I am confident that the swap will result in more decks fighting over these cards.

 

[Schafkurai]

Rydia, Monument and Talent is also the package I would have suggested, had I read this post in time! I love the monument and you definitely convinced me about Rydia. I think I didn't consider her much for my own cube because of the additive distraction of Sagas, because I only have two in my own cube at the moment. But fetch lands and other ways to dump more lands into play for sure make her worthwhile enough (although there is the kavu coming in Edge of Eternities and hopefully some other cards too).

The Talent I never really considered because the two second levels are so expensive. But maybe it pulls it's weight? Either way I'm curious to hear how the changes play out. Also regarding the cheaper top end. It's something I have done since the beginning in my cube (curve tops at 5-6, there's not much ramp) but somehow reanimator is not a deck That happens in my cube.

 

[Nanonox]

Glad to hear the discard package is appealing to others!

First impression is that I’ve had a hard time slotting the Talent into decks while drafting. It’s not as good of a build around as Jeskai
Ascendancy and I don’t know that I need a second lesser copy. Being single color is huge, but not untapping or pumping creatures limits applications. It also doesn’t fit into madness aggro decks because of the noncreature rider.

 

[Nanonox]

I've been trying to make slower more controlling decks a thing and one area where I struggle is making them fit the explosive synergy idea of the cube. One thing that makes control decks unique is that they can use wraths as an X for 1 and gain huge card advantage and set up for the longer game. If my wraths ask that my players use synergy to maximize their effect, I think that is a step in the right direction. As an example, Dom drafted a really cool Naya control deck with Cataclysm and Balance.



You get to break the symmetry with a lot of effects, the splashiest of the bunch is probably Greater Gargadon. There is a ton of recursion and cards that get better post wraths.

Other wraths that fit the description in Black (I run LD and TMH already)



Deluge of Doom could be a clean swap for Toxic Deluge. Here is what Doom hits at different values of X (I didn't go through all of the corner cases, so actual numbers might be a bit off)

At X=5, it hits 93% of creatures
At X=4, it hits 90% of creatures
At X=3, it hits 83% of creatures
At X=2, it hits 69% of creatures

It misses most of the cheat targets and the top end of the curve which isn't bad and even allows you to break the symmetry.

Red has a few as well



I just cut Dreams because the random discard is too difficult to plan around.

However, I could see myself adding Firestorm again because of how high impact it is at one mana. I hadn't looked at it through this control synergy lens. It could also provide a sweet GY/discard based control deck for Rakdos if I do add Deluge of Doom.

Wildfire is on the other end of the spectrum where 6 mana is too much for my tastes especially when it's not a hard wrath.

Firestorm is a good example of why you need at least a few non-conditional wraths, because otherwise you limit your drafters too much in how they can build a deck and are actually forcing them to go on rails.

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I recently added an Esper artifact control package



Esper has all the tools to take advantage of slower games and these cards being artifacts tie into the existing architecture of the cube. They can be blinked, reanimated, cheated out or straight up ramped out giving the control deck some synergy to play with. There is also a GY angle between Deathmark and Dakkon milling cards and the Gearhulk. The planeswalker dodges most wraths leaving you with an advantage.

Here is an example decklist I drafted



This is in the right direction with some small card synergies and a very solid game plan. Not as compelling as the previous deck, but it works as a proof of concept.

In this style of deck, I come back to wanting to include



They are really cool tutors that give control the tools it needs at all points in the game. They are great hits for the newly added Torrential Gearhulk too. They are especially good at giving UG decks a boost since Life from the Loam, Regrowth and Eternal Witness are high picks for good piles. I would probably add Gifts before Intuition as the piles seems easier to make and you get two cards guaranteed. Not sure what to cut though...

Swaps

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Just a test to see how I like it. Definite downgrade, but want to see if I can get some GY control going.

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Never gave Tifa a fair chance, will have to try more seriously one day.

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Stock Up is likely the better card and certainly one that goes into more decks. However, the goal is to push slower decks a bit. Plus I hate that stupid Aetherdrift set symbol and the less card in the cube with them, the better.

Any other synergy suggestions for control decks? Any wraths you think I've missed? Would love to hear ideas.