Pendrell's Cube (576 cards, powered, uses a test pool)

[VincePendrell]

NOTE: This thread is retired, but the spreadsheet still points to the updated version of the cube.

Hey guys, decided to post my list here to see if I get some feedback. I have a thread at ol' sally, but never got much feedback there, so I figured it would be good to post it here as well. I'll try to do something different then the thread there to try and leverage the knowledge and experimentation that seems to permeate this community, so my posts here might not be as thorough

List: Google Spreadsheet | CubeTutor | MTGSalvation Thread
The bulk of past information, pictures, and etc for my cube is at my salvation thread, but the cool data is in the spreadsheet. I try to keep them all updated, but changes might take a day or two to propagate between websites (because of laziness).

Overall Goals:
My goal as a cube designer is to create the most fun environment possible for my players to draft and play. Since this is basically what everyone wants, I'll list what composes a fun environment for my players so you guys can better understand what are my goals and constrains while working on my list:

• Supporting as many archetypes as possible is a must. I want my players to explore as many crazy archetypes as they imagine and I want that every color combo has some possible archetypes under its belt.
• Players are playing for a regular cube draft experience, not for the skill testing. This means that they want to play crazy powerful cards, and getting beaten by powerful cards is part of their fun. My job here is to allow that, but to make sure that those cards don't win the game by themselves and that there are enough answers to go around.
• It is important that the environment is a good skill tester, be it in the drafting portion, or in deckbuilding, gameplay or sideboard. I have to reward players that draft and build a deck that follows a plan because that is what is going to make them better players and make the cube more enjoyable. (Basically, "come for the splashy cards, keep playing because you knew your effort was worth it")
• My cube is not a showcase of Magic's history. I don't feel obliged to maintain a powerful card if its not helping the environment. That is how Moat and The Abyss got kicked.
• I almost follow the singleton rule. Since the beggining I am playing an additional Armageddon instead of Ravages of War for budgetary reasons and mostly spite. Recently I added Pithing Needle #2 because I thought it would make a good addition. So far, my rule has been that I only include a duplicate if there is a different art so the players don't get confused in the draft portion of the game.

Now, to some quirks of the drafts I conduct:

• We draft with 4 12-card boosters per player. This makes signal reading in draft more interesting and makes 3 more cards available per player. These additional cards make creating slots for sideboard cards easier, which also helps to fight overly powerful cards out of the sideboard or even having a complete makeshift in game plan to better suit the match. (Trivia: My cube has 576 cards because it is the number needed to support 2 6-players drafts)
• Boosters are made with one card of each color, plus a colorless, plus 2 guild and then filled with random cards. This not only ensures that there is a more even color distribution, but it makes dual lands more readily available (they are sorted in guild section).
• I like testing new cards out, so I have a test pool section with rotating cards that are always included in any draft pool. (Trivia: Always included in pools means that my cube could have 10 slots less and also supports 2 non-simultaneous 6-man drafts, making my last trivia less interesting).
• There is enough lands to go around and players value mana fixing high from booster 2 onwards. It seems that no player ever had a situation where his deck got shafted because of bad mana.

Well, after all this info, my main issues right now are:

• I want more blue cards that play well in aggro/tempo decks that are not necessarily any good for controlish/midrange decks. I'm okay with taking down some 'get there' cards for controlish decks or maybe a finisher or a counterspell if it is what it takes.
• I feel like blue/red could use a more spell-oriented nature. Would love some ideas here.
• I will be always on the lookout for cards that scream "pick me first and draft aggro decks", as there are plenty of cards that say "Esper control is the way to go" already.
• If you know any comboish strategies that might play well in a cube in a nonparasitic way (is not completely linear and doesn't fully depend on a small subset of cards), I'd love to hear.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Out of curiosity, how did you arrive at 576 as your number?

 

[Eric Chan]

I just want to say, that is a SICK spreadsheet. Major props for your super detailed organization and visualization.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hi Vince. I ran through a draft on TappedOut, but I think it was hard to get an accurate sense of how the cube plays out in practice. My draft had almost no fixing Pack 1, and I got sucked into a mono-color deck. You mentioned that you seed in guild cards at a higher proportion in your opening post, so I'm sure that plays a big factor. Have you done the math on how many fixing lands on average show up in a single draft using your method?

 

[VincePendrell]

Hey guys, thanks for the comments.

@Eric: Thanks a lot! The spreadsheet took me a while to get togheter, especially because I was trying to use a scripting API to auto-fetch all the card data, but the database was out of date and I spent way too much time before getting pissed, ditching the API and hand-inserting the values. I did programmed some stuff for getting cmc by type and cost that I'm using. I think I'll comment my functions and make it public soon

@Jason: I got to 576 because I was experimenting with 4 12-card boosters and decided that it was cooler than 3 15-card boosters, so I adapted it to run 2 drafts with 6 people before running out of cards (2 drafts * 6 people * 4 boosters * 12 cards = 576 cards needed). I also like having more cards than the necessary for a single draft because it adds in variance for the draft pool and contextual card evaluation skills get a bit more important as the draft goes.

About the Tapped Out draft, I think you got a very anomalous draft pool. In fact, until now, I can remember only a couple of mono decks that got pulled together (a monoblack midrange and a monored burn), and even then, the monored could splash blue out of the sideboard for more control elements (out of sulfur falls and another dual land I can't recall). Granted, in a regular draft with my cube, you would have 3 more cards in your pool at the end of the draft. I think that drafting with 6 players in Tapped Out comes closer to drafting with my cube. Maybe their AI has something to do with it as well. I have seen lots of time where I get passed Ancestral Recall for P1-P3 and the bots picked something absolutely nonsense.

I haven't done any math on how many lands we have on average before, but decks do end up with about 5-7 nonbasics for 3-color decks or 3-6 for 2-color decks. Since we have 2 fixed guild cards for each booster and lands account for about 40%, I believe we have something like 3.5 dual lands getting thrown into the draft pool for each player. Curiously, we also already saw some anomalous boosters where both guild cards are lands, colorless get something like City of Brass, a random card is another fixing land and one of the colors has a land (like Treetop Village) for his fixed card.

 

[Dom Harvey]

dat spreadsheet :eek:

 

[VincePendrell]

I have recently updated my list with M14 and some other changes. I have detailed some things on my MTGSalvation thread but since I never get any feedback there, I might as well transfer all of the discusion to this thread here. The following are my latest changes:

List Changes:
- Revoke Existence → + Imposing Sovereign
- Magus of the Moat → + Banisher Priest
- Capsize → + Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
- Consacrated Sphinx → + Cursecatcher
- Impulse → + Cloud of Faeries (Test Pool Slot)
- Shelldock Isle³ → + Ninja of the Deep Hours
- Tooth and Nails → + Gush
- Nekrataal → + Liliana's Reaver
- Living Death → + Wasteland #2
- Bloodline Keeper → + Fulminator Mage
- Vampire Nighthawk → + Cemetery Reaper (Test Pool Slot)
- Burning of Xinye → + Goblin Ruinblaster²
- Rolling Earthquake → + Hell's Thunder
- Kargan Dragonlord → + Burst Lightning
- Chandra, the Firebrand → + Chandra, Pyromaster
- Terastodon → + Gaea's Cradle²
- Fyndhorn Elves → + Elvish Mystic
- Momentary Blink → + Lyev Skyknight
- Forbidden Alchemy¹ → + Far//Away²
- Armada Wurm¹ → + Voice of Resurgence²
- High-Priest of Penance → + Stillmoon Cavalier
- Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius → + Turn//Burn

¹ = Card in now on probation
² = Card was in the test pool
³ = Card was in the watch list

Overall, I'm trying to move towards blue as a more aggressive color. I have a lot of players that love tempo decks so I'm giving it more tools. Most cards I'm removing felt like redundant and/or were being underplayed.

Two cards that I'm adding are going through my test pool first because I'm not entirely sure of their impact. Since the test pool is always included in the drafts, the cards are more easily available for evaluation.

Test Pool (12) 1 Cloud of Faeries #new 1 Mistblade Shinobi #new 1 Sakashima's Student #new 1 Standstill #new 1 Cemetery Reaper #new 1 Stab Wound #new 1 Pain's Reward #new 1 Renegade Krasis 1 Hystrodon #good 1 Momentary Blink #probation 1 Sire of Insanity 1 Armada Wurm #probation

Spoiler: Picture

I have also updated my spreadsheet with a simple math for considering hybrid cards both of its colors in order to have a better understanding on how they make more cards available for each of its colors (see the Hybrid Influence Amount chart on the overview tab). For those who enjoyed my spreadsheet, I have tried to make the sourcecode for my custom analysis functions available but it looks like google needs to approve it or something. I don't think it is going to be accepted, but if you are interested in having a look, just send me a message and I'll copy-paste it for you

 

[xyz]

I like what you've got going on there! Probably because we have some of the same ideas / weird cards. I don't run power though, so some of my ideas might not apply... that being said....

Well, after all this info, my main issues right now are:

• I want more blue cards that play well in aggro/tempo decks that are not necessarily any good for controlish/midrange decks. I'm okay with taking down some 'get there' cards for controlish decks or maybe a finisher or a counterspell if it is what it takes.
• I feel like blue/red could use a more spell-oriented nature. Would love some ideas here.
• I will be always on the lookout for cards that scream "pick me first and draft aggro decks", as there are plenty of cards that say "Esper control is the way to go" already.
• If you know any comboish strategies that might play well in a cube in a nonparasitic way (is not completely linear and doesn't fully depend on a small subset of cards), I'd love to hear.

I think the way to go with blue aggro/tempo decks is to include more cheap threats and more flash creatures. Cloudfin Raptor and Judge's Familiar (better than Cursecatcher!) are both surprisingly useful. Being one drops does so much. They lets you hold up counterspells earlier (not necessarily T2 since they don't actually add much pressure on their own) and unblockable T1 creatures let you Ninjutsu Ninja of the Deep Hours on curve. AEther Vial is also a one drop to consider for this role. A lot of people don't really like it because it's hard to make work, but I think it's good that it really rewards and emphasizes drafting good curves.

Similarly, flash creatures are amazing for letting you hold up counters. I think the more you play the better blue aggro/tempo gets, even if they're not blue.

• Aven Mindcensor is hidden gem from modern. Hosing tutors is very nice to have in cube as well, especially since people have started moving towards the "they're too good/mindless" camp.​

• Wydwen, the Biting Gale is a little on the expensive end, but it's still a very solid threat. Better than Inkfathom Infiltrator I imagine.​

• Spellstutter Sprite is much dorkier than the others, but if your players can dig it, it's a perfect fit.​

• I like Wolfir Avenger alot too. Green is already a good color to pair with since it has Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Mystic Snake, and Mayor of Avabruck and another flash threat doesn't hurt. Having regenerate is also very relevant because he can also hold the ground for your fliers later on.​

• Speaking of holding the ground, Deceiver Exarch actually does a lot of work. I originally mainly included him for the combo potential, but a big butt you don't have to tap out for is sweet for both tempo and control. Aaaand if you wanted to boost combo, he helps there too ​

• I also play Briarhorn and Yeva, Nature's Herald for similar reasons as all the above. Eating a creature as a combat trick is another bonus. Although, my cube is more creature heavy than most, so it might be going too deep for you.​

• I used to play Midnight Haunting to push tempo and token decks, but it's definitely underpowered.​

• Deputy of Acquittals could also be cute... but probably too weak as well.​

​

Bounce does a lot of work with Edric, Spymaster of Trest and Ninja of the Deep Hours.

• I like that you play Far // Away and Jilt​

• I think Mistblade Shinobi is meh though. If you're connecting with it, they probably don't have creatures anyway.​

• How has Vapor Snag played out for you? I went with Silent Departure for the flashback/less card disadvantage and because I have enough other instant speed bounce.​

• Waterfront Bouncer can be good too if you need more of it.​

​

Adventuring Gear also helps aggro, and especially blue because it has a lot of cheap fliers that don't hit as hard. You can also fetch it with Trinketforge Mystic.

Alright, I'm done typing for now, but feel free to bounce ideas off of me . I try to do the whole blue-red spells thing and the combo thing and it's been good for me, so come by and take a look .

 

[VincePendrell]

(had this post ready earlier but the site went offline for a while and I went out, so here it is!)

That is a lot of things to consider. Thanks for the comment, xyz!

• I didn't even remembered Judge's Familiar existed so it seems only natural for it to replace Cursecatcher. I can even switch one for another and my cube won't even notice it very much as color influence will be 74.5, 73.25. I had my eyes on Cloudfin Raptor since I first saw it, but never got to test it. Have you had any experience playing it?
• Mindcensor looks very interesting! I think I might have a copy laying around to try it out. I will place it on the test pool asap. What would you suggest cutting if it makes it in? I feel that white is the hardest color to make cuts.
• I was going to try Spellstutter Sprite in this iteration of my test pool, but decided to give Mistblade Shinobi a try first because I was more doubtful about it than the sprite.
• Not sure about Wydwen, but I can give it a try as well. I feel like it will be played on control more than on tempo decks, though.
• I'm also not sure about Deceiver Exarch but for a different reason: I've been trying to reduce the amount of control-playable cards that stall the early game too well while not hurting tempo decks. That's why I included Pestermite instead of Exarch when I had the chance and why I don't run Augur of Bolas or Sea Gate Oracle.
• I was already also thinking about Briarhorn because I wanted more interesting things to happen during combat, so one more reason to try him out. Not so sure about Yeva as my 4cc is already pushing it in green. I will try Wolfir Avenger as well since I was looking for another green three-drop to replace a 5-drop (right now, Hystrodon is being watched for the slot).
• I actually added Vapor Snag because I couldn't find my Repeal among my cards. Since then, it has been a good role player and the instant speed played a part in it being good. There was even some games where that single point of damage was very relevant. I've had Silent Departure suggested to me before and I didn't tried it, but the more I think of it, the more I believe it might actually be a pretty neat card. I'll see if I find room for it as well
• I did tried Waterfront Bouncer before and it was too slow and too fragile to go against the aggro decks. It once keeped an Eureka>Kozilek at bay, but it didn't do much else. Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal were also tested and met the same veredict.
• I like Adventuring Gear and I guess it will make a neat addition in the near future

I've had a look at your cube a few days ago and really liked what you were doing there, so congrats on your list! I'll see if I get some time to make relevant comments on your list


On another note, I think I might give a try at something else with my main cube before I dismatle and build my grave cube: I'm going to unpower it, remove all fast mana, absurdly unfair cards (Mind Twist, Maze of Ith, among others) and some answer cards and see how it goes. I've been wanting to add more fetchlands for a while and I guess it might be better to do it this next month instead of one or two years from now.

 

[xyz]

• I haven't seen Cloudfin Raptor in the pool much from what I remember, but I played it once in a blue-red aggro deck in it was attacking for 2 in the air often, which seems about right . It was a 3/4 a few times too. It's definitely more along the aggro spectrum than tempo though.
• I have no idea what to cut . Depends on what you're trying to do with white. It's your cube/environment.
• Yea, definitely. You won't know how it runs if you don't try it. Although, you probably want to try it with as many supporting cards as possible. It's like "testing" aggro by only adding a couple 1 drops.
• I know where you're coming from... that's kind of the problem with blue (in constructed too)... the good aggressive cards can be used defensively too. Still, I think Wydwen, the Biting Gale might give more incentive to playing aggro than a 2/1 "shadow" creature because the latter is just so underwhelming. Either that or cut something that only goes into control decks. Actually, that sounds like the best solution.
• Hmmm maybe the answer is to cut a finisher then? It's hard for me to gauge, because I don't play power. I expect control is better in powered than unpowered might be part of the problem. Jinxed Choker and Jinxed Idol might give aggro a generic boost. Maybe cut some durdly control artifact like Ratchet Bomb.
• You could have Yeva, Nature's Herald replace Obstinate Baloth since that solely punishes aggro? At least Yeva, Nature's Herald makes things interesting for aggro .
• Yea, know what you mean about Waterfront Bouncer. To be fair, I'm pretty on the edge with him too. He's going as soon as a really good early blue creature comes around. On the other hand, it does read perfectly as a card control doesn't really want but tempo does. The cards disadvantage / weakness against aggro is meh for control, tempo however, can really leverage it. Also yea weak against aggro is traditionally a problem for tempo. (Which is why Deceiver Exarch is so good for the deck.)
•

Yay, I look forward to the comments ^^

Consider not removing absurdly unfair cards that promote creatures though . Even though CML's article was just talking about how Skullclamp is oppressive, I still like having it around because at least it means you're still drafting/pushed towards drafting creatures rather than defaulting to control. Same with SwordsOfXandY. And considering my roommate who I grid drafted a lot with last year would always take artifact/enchantment removal and main deck 4+ pieces consistently....yea they're not that bad. At least timely spot removal for them usually means only trading 1for1, unlike a lot of creatures now.

End note: All this theorycrafting about blue aggro/tempo makes me really want to try out Coastal Piracy ...guess i'm going to go update my thread now

 

[VincePendrell]

On the bullet points: Yeah, I'm going to have to test these cards out and see what happens. I think my next iteration on my test pool will be radically different from what I am trying out now. Good thing is that I won't need to make cuts until I have the cards tested and approved and by then I will have a better idea of what is not really fitting.

And I'm definitelly not taking out the aggro "unfair" cards. The swords, skullclamp, armageddon and such haven't really caused any trouble. In fact, most cards haven't caused any trouble at all, but some are so easily first-picked that the drafts looks less intersting (Mind Twist, for instance, seems like a better pick than most cards in cube, being equally compared to Time Walk and Ancestral Recall) and makes Esper Control looks like the best archetype by a mile (And recently it has been heavily drafted and won a good amount).

 

[xyz]

Oh I forgot to mention. For blue tempo, I really like Temporal Spring. That card is so sweet!!!!!!!!! It's like a blue-green Vindicate....as long as you don't need to permanently take care of the thing. But, even better than Vindicate, it can be Time Walk late in the game. It's also a solid stopgap in a ramp deck (the other thing blue-green tends to do in my experience).

 

[VincePendrell]

Since I never get any feedback from my MTGS thread, I might as well bring all stuff here (which more than makes sense, since I spend more time in this forums than on MTGS cube section). In the near future, I plan on bringing every single piece of data from my thread there, including data from previous test pools, list changes, etc. Right now, I'll restrict myself to posting my last cube draft info.



Yesterday we did two 4-people drafts. Here is the breakdown of archetypes and win-ratio:
(players ordered by table position)
1st Draft:
1/1 — Boros Aggro (Rafael)

2/0 — Ramp (Carlos)​

1/1 — {} Tokens and Removal Midrange (Vince)
0/2 — Aggro/Reanimator (Henrique)
We played only two rounds because one of the players had to leave. Luckily, we found a fourth player for our second draft.

Spoiler: Winner

UG Ramp

2nd Draft:
3/0 — Esper Control (Carlos)
1/2 — Beatdown (Henrique)
2/1 — Rec/Sur Midrange (Vince)
0/3 — Tempo Ramp (Renan)

Spoiler: Winner

Esper Control

First draft was interesting because a fairly underdrafted archetype got to be the winner. Ramp faced Boros in the "finals". I was half-expecting Boros to be the winner since it was extremely fast, but the deck had a lot of incremental advantage and Boros didn't had many removal spells and the creatures weren't as evasive as they should.
is also a combination that is always underrated and it was good to see someone try to play with it (both; results weren't so good, unfortunately). Esper Control still looks like it is the deck to beat in the cube. I can't really say it was a regular draft since we had fewer players than usual and Esper got to be the only player in white (and the pool had a lot of great removal for white). Still, there is a lot to be said for the consistency of this color combination.


Test Pool Results:
Pain's Reward:
This card has been completely awful in playtesting. Ok, it was a 3-mana 10+ damage spell a couple of times, but even then, drawing cards would be miles better and the cards the opponent drew were usually what made the caster lose the game. I should probably test this a bit more to have more data before letting this card go ( would theoretically love this). This card was in the tokens and then in the deck, and it has been much worse than anticipated and I'm cutting it from the test pool.

Renegade Krasis:
This guy has been an underperformer for a good while. He was in my test pool because I'm planning on taking a 5-drop and replace it with a 3-drop to make my green mana curve a bit smoother, but krasis' test nemesis (Hystrodon) has been miles ahead. Hytro will likely being included to the main list in the near future. Krasis on the other hand, is going back to the binder.

Test Pool Changes:
- Pain's Reward → + Spellstutter Sprite
- Renegade Krasis → + Young Pyromancer
Lyev Skyknight has been promoted to a honorary test pool slot.

Both Young Pyro and Spellstutter were in my radar to be tested for a while and now they've got a chance to shine.
Lyev Skyknight was added in place of Momentary Blink in my main list as I moved the instant to my test pool. I usually do this to cards that are underperforming or being low-picked to raise availability (test pool cards are included in every draft) and verify if the card is truly underperforming or it just hadn't had time to shine (I call this probation and I do it constantly). The thing is, I had no idea how well it would play. I believed (and still do) that it would fit archetypes very well, but right now I want to see it being played, and the best way of assuring a card will see play is to make it available, so this is why it is now in my test pool.

There were no changes to the main list with the exception of Lyev Skyknight going to the test pool.



So, here are ways you guys can help me:

1. I want to make aggro a bit more relevant. I need to give it more removal that doesn't get picked by the slower decks and I need to give it more card advantage. and are my main aggro colours and the ones that need the most help, with and just behind.
2. I still want cool cards that work well with tempo/aggro.
3. If you see anything that you think is utterly unnecessary and/or redundant in my list, let me know. I'm always on the lookout for things that I could live without.
4. I need to evolve the way in which I gather and use data to make changes to my cube. I used to note down every single archetype that got played, but now I'm moving it a step forward by having win/loss ratio and recording winning decklists. I'm thinking about having a spreadsheet to list archetype win/loss ratios and have a way to bind the results to a deck pilot's ranking or something to control for player skill in defining the best decks. This might be a very good reason for me to take up calculus and dissect the Microsoft TrueSkill algorithm and program some interesting tool for me to use, but until then, I'm very open to suggestions!
5. I need feedback on my writing and how to improve these reports. If you miss anything or feel like there is something that I'm not doing right, let me know!

 

[bella1li12013]

sorry to say ,i just start be a cuber for few days and not very know about it.

 

[Eric Chan]

Hey Vince, that's a lot of interesting data to pore over. Do you keep track of the how much removal there is in your cube, as a percentage? Looking at the winning Esper list, it's not entirely surprising that the archetype is the one to beat at the moment, as that deck contains nearly 50% removal spells. I imagine it'd be hard for aggro to get anything to stick on the board against it, and the cheap universal answers seem like they'd be good against midrangy decks, too.

If aggro is struggling in your cube, have you given any thought to decreasing the size of your cube to increase the consistency in aggro decks? From my own experience, I've found that as my cube grows, one of the biggest challenges is to try and maintain the same mana curve throughout, while also keeping the power level relatively stable. It's really tough to do at the lower mana costs, though, as stuff like Savannah Lions, Icatian Javelineers, and Dauthi Slayer don't match up to the power level of the premiere one and two drops. Meanwhile, there's no end of good midrangy four and five drops that can be interchangeably slotted into slower decks. You might be able to boost aggro's profile just by shaving some numbers all across the board, without needing to specifically inject, say, removal spells that can only be used in aggro.

Of course, that isn't to say there's no room for more cards that help aggro against control, or, heck, help midrange against control. I looked at my own Modern list, and noted down some cards I have especially for that purpose, that you aren't running:

Loyal Cathar (better than a lot of the WW drops you have, IMO)
Mana Tithe
Shrine of Loyal Legions
Aether Adept
Riftwing Cloudskate
Delay (this one might be sketchy in a powered cube)
Bloodgift Demon (this could replace Drana, who really only hoses small aggro)
Shrine of Burning Rage
Gaea's Revenge
Terastodon
Kessig Wolf Run

Not a huge list by any means, but maybe there's some ideas you can use. Let us know what you end up changing, and how things go!

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Seems like there was quite a lot of cheap removal in that Esper control deck. It could be worth looking at the amount and cost of removal that you have. I can't think of any specifically aggro only removal other than things like snuff out and vendetta.
I would look at the amount of anti aggro cards that you have, things like obstinate balloth and wall of blossoms for instance. Do you need all of these, can they be something that is more supportive of aggro?
How about more things that fight fast mana?
goblin vandals
Kataki, war's wage
Smash to smithereens
Artifact mutation
How about things to give your aggro decks more reach and disruption?
acidic soil
Contamination
Nether void
Temporal spring
Mana tithe
Maybe make some of your aggro pair gold cards more aggro focused. Things like Olivia and bituminise blast and sire of insanity are all good fun, but something like blightning might be more supportive of aggro?
Re blue tempo cards, lavinia of the tenth is doing good things for us here. She wrecked me in our last draft.
Good luck!

 

[VincePendrell]

Eric, thanks for the suggestions! I haven't kept track of the percentage of removal spells that I have available for a while now. I guess it would be a good idea to integrate this in my spreadsheet along with a few other minor functionalities that I was thinking about.

I don't really want to reduce my cube size right now. I feel like it is good enough to foster enough variance in archetypes and making the draft looks significantly different every time. You do touch an interesting point though, and I think I might make aggro more efficient by breaking the singleton rule further and introducing duplicates of the better aggro cards. Hmm...guess I'll probably have Gravecrawler aggro in the near future...

On the suggestions:
• I have tried and removed Terastodon and Shrine of Burning Rage already.
• I've been thinking about the Bloodgift ↔ Drana swap as of lately and I might as well do it.
• Aether Adept and Mana Tithe were in my watch list for a while. I'll see if I prioritize 'em on my last cuts.
• Not sure how better would Loyal Cathar would be than my other two drops. What 2-drops you are not very fond of in my list?
I don't really have a formed opinion on the other ones, so I'll have tham listed for my next Test Pool iterations.


EDIT: I had my reply open before I went to dinner and got a new reply :O Editing to answer Alfonso:

First of, thanks for the comment. Yeah, that last Esper got a huge amount of removal and I'll be looking towards aving a better grasp at my removal and aggro-stopper ratios. I've been noting down some cards that I can live without and are a pain for aggro decks already.

On the suggestions, right now I'm not looking forward to have things that go against fast artifact mana as I will be unpowering my cube in a couple of weeks to try something new. I did have my eyes on Kataki and Smash to Smithereens if I were to keep it powered, but I realized that all the artifact acceleration was not a part of why my friends and I enjoy my cube, so I'll see if something cooler comes along.

From the aggro-helpers, I did had my eyes on a couple a while ago. I wasn't very interesting in both Contamination and Acidic Soil. I feel like Soil would make games draw more often than not and Contamination is just as disrupting to low-mana decks as it is to slower ones. Those are the kind of card that I can have in my test pool and see how they go, so I'm noting them down anyway;

EDIT 2: Oh yes, forgot about the cards: I do like having some midrange/control tools for and for Grixis Control. They are not archetypes that gets played a lot, so I'm okay with giving them these cards.
I'm adding Lavinia to my to-test list as well



I'm going to add a new tab to my spreadsheet with cards that I'm looking forward to include and/or put in my test pool to note all of the suggestions I'm getting since the piece of paper that I have in front of me doesn't have much space left. (EDIT3: Done!)

 

[Eric Chan]

Yep, breaking singleton is the other good way to address the paucity of strong one drops, and is something I found beneficial to do even at 360 cards. Maybe one day they'll print as many Gravecrawler functional reprints as Llanowar Elves, but until then, it's sweet to push black aggro in a focused direction by loading up on Gravecrawlers. Paging Jason: you have another convert!

I know that, like me, you're a fan of minute, fine-grained classification, so I'll share some of the techniques I use in my own spreadsheet. For every card, I have a number of column headers along the top, representing various card types: spot removal, mass removal, counterspell (in blue), ramp (in green), etc. If a card qualifies as being in that category, I tick off the column. Then I can have an automatic tally of, say, the amount of spot removal in my cube at any time, and keep tabs on what happens when I reduce my cube size by ten or fifteen cards. To be sure, the numbers are not something that I let restrain my overall cube design goals, but they're still good metrics to have to make sure I don't accidentally tweak a knob that I didn't mean to touch. Sometimes I go in and axe a dozen beefy midrange creatures to try and improve aggro, but then I realize that my mass removal percentage has gone up half a percentage, which runs counter to my original goal of boosting aggro. Stuff like that is easy to miss without having some automated sanity checks in place.

Loyal Cathar is actually my favourite bear in cube at this point. No joke! I've been slowly whittling away the number of beaters for a while, because mono-white aggro doesn't have the power level to compete with the rest of the top tier decks. I try and emphasize bears instead, because splashing a colour - any colour - seems to go a long way in making the white aggro decks here viable. In your specific case, I could see axing one of the Soltari brothers to make room, as while a 2/1 unblockable beatstick is fine, I find it's not as impressive as it used to be.

 

[VincePendrell]

I could see any cube having Gravecrawler, Tombcrawler and Crawler of the Grave in their lists

I was thinking of something pretty much like what you said, but I still haven't figure it out how I want to visualize that data. I'm also planning on how I'm going to fine-tune the information taking golden cards and hybrids into account to have a more accurate count. Do you have a quick link to your spread sheet that I can consult?

Loyal Cathar was added to my Test Queue at the spreadsheet. Looking forward to trying it out! I don't think the Soltari that will get cut, though. Lone Missionary feels like a greater anti-aggro card than any of the shadow creature. People usually say that they are not interactive and whatnot, but I've never encountered a situation that this is actually the case. Plus, they still carry a Bonesplitter like no one else.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I was thinking of something pretty much like what you said, but I still haven't figure it out how I want to visualize that data. I'm also planning on how I'm going to fine-tune the information taking golden cards and hybrids into account to have a more accurate count. Do you have a quick link to your spread sheet that I can consult?

If you have any questions or thoughts about data visualization let me know. I've spent a lot of time thinking about graphing Magic data, but... well, it has some interesting issues. I would love to brainstorm though.

 

[Eric Chan]

Yep yep, I've just enabled read-only sharing of my cube list sheet. I've never really done any housekeeping with the intention to invites guests over, though, so please watch your step and beware of the mess in there. Also, I don't know if the formulas show up properly in read-only mode or not, so it might be that you can't actually see what I'm tallying up. Who knows!

On the Multi sheet, you can also take a peek at how I classify and count both my gold and hybrid multicolor cards, though I'll admit the information is a bit hard to parse. But I think it's a decent enough system for maintaining rough balance across colours.

In general, blue highlighting means the card is on watch to be cut for being too weak; red, the same but for being too strong; and yellow indicates a proxy.

As far as cards go versus cards, I feel like there's a much higher bar for a weenie to clear in order to justify its inclusion. Aggro decks have a difficult enough time as it is assembling a critical mass of cheap beaters, and I don't want to make it harder on them by restricting their ability to splash a second or even a third colour. So it's not that I think Soltari Monk nerfs aggro in particular, but just that having it in my cube will railroad more people down the mono-white aggro path, which isn't a strong deck in my environment. W/u, W/g, and W/r are all more than viable, though, so I favour (weaker?) cards like Daring Skyjek and Kor Skyfisher to encourage more flexible builds. I'm actually down to just two bears now - Cathar and Leonin Relic-Warder - because I couldn't justify the space for the rest of the line-up. Of course, your mileage may vary, and in a larger cube there's certainly more room to manoeuvre. I would just be careful about cutting a creature for a one - it feels like you might want to do the opposite!

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Two of your white 2 drops that stand out to me for wanting to cut would be lone missionary for the anti aggro properties and azorius arrester as it feels like its just not strong enough. However like Eric says I don't think I would want to replace them with a WW card. If you were going to try loyal cathar I might swap it out for knight of meadowgrain (anti aggro again?). I would keep your evasive soltari guys.

Is temporal isolation better than pacifism?

 

[VincePendrell]

@Jason: As soon as I sit myself through some of the ideas and need that I have when playing with my list, I'll compile my thoughts and start a new thread for us to discuss these things Right now I have something in mind with venn diagrams for multi-purpose cards and some automatic stack-rank for showing different cards. I want to be able to count hybrids for either color and have ways to visualize things by color combination as well to understand the amount of access each archetype has to any given type of card.

@Eric: Thanks for sharing the table! The formulas don't show up, but I was most interested in knowing what intel are you gathering and how, and the table does a good job at conveying those things.

@Alfonso: Temporal Isolation does look like the better card, but when I included Pacifism, I was more interested in having an ok removal that could be overlooked by control and picked by more aggressive decks than having the better card. Asides from being instant, the only creatures that I can see being stopped by TempIso that Pacifism wouldn't handle completely are red creatures that are interesting in aggro decks (namely Grim Lavamancer and Fireslinger) and I really don't want to hate on those cards as they are fun when they are doing their thing. With that said, if I were looking for a more control-oriented removal, I would try my hand at Condemn before any of the enchantments. (Temporal Isolation does make Geist of Saint Traft better, though (not that it needed any more help) )

On the whole against discussion: Right now I think that aggro white decks might handle Loyal Cathar along with the other WW drops fine. I did had my eyes on Meadowgrain before, but as it has never been used against an aggro deck (aside from mirror matches). I'll keep a closer watch and it might be the one dropping from the cube in the future, but right now, Lone Missionary seems to be the worst offender.

I've been to my LGS today and picked up an extra pair of Champion of the Parish for my next cube reformulation, and I know for sure that I have another Gravecrawler laying around somewhere. Unpowered double-fetch aggro-duplicated cube seems like it is going to be fun

 

[xyz]

On the topic of aggro slanted removal: Searing Blaze? It does cost and pushes mono red which is kinda a design flaw? but it's not narrow like Ball Lightning and is just really really efficient.

I also support Loyal Cathar! It's a lot of fun to sac and blink and shtuff.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I love Searing Blaze. I find CC costs to be much more manageable than CCC costs. I don't think it's bad to push mono-red a bit, it's just a question of degree. As far as Searing Blaze goes, I run it all the time in non-mono decks.

There was a time when people were complaining about red decks being "underpowered" in my cube, and I was tempted to jam a second Searing Blaze in there, but didn't because I knew the complaints were unfounded. Our group has some real skill disparities at times, and people have a hard time separating the pilot from the archetype when things are performing poorly.