Chris Taylor
Contributor
My favorite terastadon play is to pretend this is prophecy limited and sac 3 lands
Retro Combo Cube
- Thread starter ahadabans
- Start date
Naya Zoo vs Dimir Psycatog Control
Final decks in action. The Naya deck is mostly an agro list. Kird Ape, Qasali Pridemage, Lightning Helix. It has landfall elements as well. Steppe Linx and a concentration of fetch lands that both help with Kird Ape and trigger land fall. This deck also has a small graveyard theme with Call of the Herd, Knight of the Reliquary, Vengevine, Fauna Shaman, Basking Rootwalla. Along with Cataclysm and Crucible of World for a late game agro control element. I think this deck is super solid and I expect it to do really well against the field. Dimir was a late addition to my test decks when I expanded to 405. It's standard control with sweepers (Toxic Deluge), targeted discard and removal, card draw. In blue, there are control magic variants (Sower of Temptation, counters of course, card draw). Late game engines in Future Sight and mana rocks + Upheaval +Psychatog. Morphling is an old school finisher that might be outclassed in modern cubes but should still do work here (though probably not in this matchup specifically).
Naya wins 2-1!
Game 1 goes to Naya on the play. Kird Ape is followed up by a Wild Mongrel and another beater. Dimir takes away Cataclysm with duress and stops the bleeding with deluge for 3. But Call of the Herd is too much value and Dimir dies to an elephant token. Key play though that actually won the game was Thornscape Battlemage with R kicker to kill Sower and swing the game permanently over to Naya. Sower is a sweet card but when it gets answered, bad things tend to happen. As the victim of a Sower, it makes you really thankful you prioritized removal in your deck list and that you aren't dealing with actual Control Magic which is often a lot harder to remove (though maybe less swingy since it's not a second body you have to also contend with). I go back and forth on which of these cards does more good for the cube.
Game 2 is very tight. Naya gets the beats going again, but this time answered with spot removal and a Shriekmaw. Lightning Helix and Dimir is down to very low life. Orcish Lumberjack, sac forest into Bloodbraid Elf would be game but it's answered by Force of Will (as always, playing both decks you know it's a bad play but you assume it's the play that would be made). Upheaval + Psychatog follows after Thran Dynamo comes down. Naya does very well to hold off a lethal tog with a stream of top decked chump blockers, but Sower steals the final chumper and tog swings in for exactly lethal. Psychatog is a pretty slow and clunky card by today's standards, but coupled with blue/black draw and discard (and especially with Upheaval) it can get out of hand really quickly. I've never really liked tog in cube, but he's very good in this deck.
Game 3 is clunky for both decks. Dimir is flooded and Naya is missing green mana. Early Hellspark Elemental does some damage and a Wasteland keeps Dimir off of blue for a couple turns. Pridemage answers Thran Dynamo this time. Orcish Lumberjack into Thundermaw Hellkite puts Dimir is a super bad position forcing them into a deluge for 5. With life running low, Dimir gambles with Dark Confidant and dodges some bullets finally getting Upheaval into land + Mind stone. But it's not good enough. Naya top decks Kird Ape and gets Fauna Shaman online with a madness Rootwalla tutor into Vengevine. Game, set, match.
So through the first round, the focused decks did better than the unfocused ones, and aggro represented itself very well. So far so good. Only match that bothered me was the WW vs Rock match where I really don't think it should have been that uncompetitive. But the card swaps I made will hopefully help that. Future matches I'll skip the deck intros since it's the same 14 decks just in different matchups.
Final decks in action. The Naya deck is mostly an agro list. Kird Ape, Qasali Pridemage, Lightning Helix. It has landfall elements as well. Steppe Linx and a concentration of fetch lands that both help with Kird Ape and trigger land fall. This deck also has a small graveyard theme with Call of the Herd, Knight of the Reliquary, Vengevine, Fauna Shaman, Basking Rootwalla. Along with Cataclysm and Crucible of World for a late game agro control element. I think this deck is super solid and I expect it to do really well against the field. Dimir was a late addition to my test decks when I expanded to 405. It's standard control with sweepers (Toxic Deluge), targeted discard and removal, card draw. In blue, there are control magic variants (Sower of Temptation, counters of course, card draw). Late game engines in Future Sight and mana rocks + Upheaval +Psychatog. Morphling is an old school finisher that might be outclassed in modern cubes but should still do work here (though probably not in this matchup specifically).
Naya wins 2-1!
Game 1 goes to Naya on the play. Kird Ape is followed up by a Wild Mongrel and another beater. Dimir takes away Cataclysm with duress and stops the bleeding with deluge for 3. But Call of the Herd is too much value and Dimir dies to an elephant token. Key play though that actually won the game was Thornscape Battlemage with R kicker to kill Sower and swing the game permanently over to Naya. Sower is a sweet card but when it gets answered, bad things tend to happen. As the victim of a Sower, it makes you really thankful you prioritized removal in your deck list and that you aren't dealing with actual Control Magic which is often a lot harder to remove (though maybe less swingy since it's not a second body you have to also contend with). I go back and forth on which of these cards does more good for the cube.
Game 2 is very tight. Naya gets the beats going again, but this time answered with spot removal and a Shriekmaw. Lightning Helix and Dimir is down to very low life. Orcish Lumberjack, sac forest into Bloodbraid Elf would be game but it's answered by Force of Will (as always, playing both decks you know it's a bad play but you assume it's the play that would be made). Upheaval + Psychatog follows after Thran Dynamo comes down. Naya does very well to hold off a lethal tog with a stream of top decked chump blockers, but Sower steals the final chumper and tog swings in for exactly lethal. Psychatog is a pretty slow and clunky card by today's standards, but coupled with blue/black draw and discard (and especially with Upheaval) it can get out of hand really quickly. I've never really liked tog in cube, but he's very good in this deck.
Game 3 is clunky for both decks. Dimir is flooded and Naya is missing green mana. Early Hellspark Elemental does some damage and a Wasteland keeps Dimir off of blue for a couple turns. Pridemage answers Thran Dynamo this time. Orcish Lumberjack into Thundermaw Hellkite puts Dimir is a super bad position forcing them into a deluge for 5. With life running low, Dimir gambles with Dark Confidant and dodges some bullets finally getting Upheaval into land + Mind stone. But it's not good enough. Naya top decks Kird Ape and gets Fauna Shaman online with a madness Rootwalla tutor into Vengevine. Game, set, match.
So through the first round, the focused decks did better than the unfocused ones, and aggro represented itself very well. So far so good. Only match that bothered me was the WW vs Rock match where I really don't think it should have been that uncompetitive. But the card swaps I made will hopefully help that. Future matches I'll skip the deck intros since it's the same 14 decks just in different matchups.
Mono Black vs GUw Opposition
Should be an interesting matchup. Both decks are agro/control, utilizing prison type mechanics to win the game. GUw has the more broken cards (opposition and armageddon), but black has early discard and more disruption overall. I think it's going to be entirely draw dependent. Maybe just one question... does GUw get opposition online? It failed to do that in the first match and lost. If it fails to do it again, I think a similar outcome is likely but let's see...
Game 1 both decks get really great openers. GUw on the play gets a T2 Shardless Agent into Waterfront Bouncer off a Mox Diamond while Mono Black lives the dream with a T1 Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Specter. Bouncer plus follow-up Man-O'-War is a good enough answer to the specter though and early beats end up in a wall of blockers on both sides. Ophiomancer threatens to combo with Carrion Feeder then more seriously with Smokestack as power starts to shift. GUw gets token production with Meloku the Clouded Mirror to even things a bit and mono Black gets stuck on 4 lands with what would be a game winning death cloud in hand. No opposition to be seen though and GUw simply has no way to break through. It takes a few turns but Mono Black gets it done. smokestack + ophiomancer + cryptbreaker is just too much value over time. Meloku came very close to ending things with flyers though. Just wasn't quite fast enough in the end. Game was very close though.
Game 2 is pretty interesting. GUw ends up winning with 2 life remaining but that's somewhat deceiving. Both decks with good early starts. GUw noble hierarch that rancors up and starts swinging (this may have been suboptimal play in hindsight though I just felt like I could get a lot of early damage in). Mono Black with gravecrawler and bloodsoaked champion. Turning point though is Tradewind Rider for GUw. That card is really powerful and it severely punishes Lake of the Dead. I did power out a Gray Merchant of Asphodel with it but bouncing Lake hurts Mono Black badly here and it's never able to fully recover. Things stall but the inevitability is there with Tradewind punishing every mana investment. Mono Black does very well to keep things interesting but really only because of Erhnam Djinn granting forest walk and allowing gravecrawler through. An exalted Djinn though is what does the final 10 points of damage for GUw. Mono Black simply couldn't kill it in combat. While the Erhnam Djinn has clearly aged, it's really not that far from playable in medium powered lists. It survives Wildfire which most green 4's don't and it hits reasonably hard. The drawback is bad if you are durdling but much less relevant in any sort of aggressive strategy. It's also splashable which is what I like best about it.
Game 3 GUw gets a T2 Troll Ascetic which is then rancor'd up. Still, Ophiomancer proves a very large stumbling block (1G regen is expensive) and GUw can't get enough on the table fast enough because of it. Mono black lucksacks a top deck Hymn to Tourach then into a swamp then into Lake of the Dead for some Necropotence fun. Sacrifice a swamp, Geralf's Messenger play Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Mono Black is in full control now. An 11 drain Gray Merchant of Asphodel basically ends all doubt. Even a Time Warp + Eternal Witness recast time warp (off Sunscape Familiar) isn't enough to matter.
Mono Black wins 2-1 and remains undefeated!
That's also 6 straight games without drawing Opposition... grrr... it's funny because I've had nights go like this where you make a deck and it should be good but it just loses because you don't draw the card(s) you built the deck around. Such is the life of singleton Magic. There's a good lesson here though in that we shouldn't be too quick to judge decks (even cards) based on limited performance. In an alternate reality where no one knew Opposition was broken in cube, I can see an influential cube manager using these two GUw matches to proclaim Opposition too inconsistent for cube and thus it never becoming a part of mainstream power cubing. Maybe a good thing in the case of opposition, but you get my point. There are a lot of really good cards which are not part of mainstream cubing because leading figures of this format dismissed them too early or never even tested them. That's unfortunate.
On a semi-related note, the mono black Lake/Nykthos/Necro/Gary package... It's really really broken. I say that not just from this one match. I've played variations of this deck many times now and it's always absurd once you get it going. In that last game I never had more than 3 lands in play. Lake into permanents into Nykthos is absolutely insane. My first use was 7 mana from three permanents and 3 lands (very easy to assemble). And from there I just traded swamps for what was essentially unlimited mana and life for cards which I strategically recouped with Gary. Not sure where the power level cut off is for this deck, but it's really high. It's probably good enough for just short of fully powered cubing.
Should be an interesting matchup. Both decks are agro/control, utilizing prison type mechanics to win the game. GUw has the more broken cards (opposition and armageddon), but black has early discard and more disruption overall. I think it's going to be entirely draw dependent. Maybe just one question... does GUw get opposition online? It failed to do that in the first match and lost. If it fails to do it again, I think a similar outcome is likely but let's see...
Game 1 both decks get really great openers. GUw on the play gets a T2 Shardless Agent into Waterfront Bouncer off a Mox Diamond while Mono Black lives the dream with a T1 Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Specter. Bouncer plus follow-up Man-O'-War is a good enough answer to the specter though and early beats end up in a wall of blockers on both sides. Ophiomancer threatens to combo with Carrion Feeder then more seriously with Smokestack as power starts to shift. GUw gets token production with Meloku the Clouded Mirror to even things a bit and mono Black gets stuck on 4 lands with what would be a game winning death cloud in hand. No opposition to be seen though and GUw simply has no way to break through. It takes a few turns but Mono Black gets it done. smokestack + ophiomancer + cryptbreaker is just too much value over time. Meloku came very close to ending things with flyers though. Just wasn't quite fast enough in the end. Game was very close though.
Game 2 is pretty interesting. GUw ends up winning with 2 life remaining but that's somewhat deceiving. Both decks with good early starts. GUw noble hierarch that rancors up and starts swinging (this may have been suboptimal play in hindsight though I just felt like I could get a lot of early damage in). Mono Black with gravecrawler and bloodsoaked champion. Turning point though is Tradewind Rider for GUw. That card is really powerful and it severely punishes Lake of the Dead. I did power out a Gray Merchant of Asphodel with it but bouncing Lake hurts Mono Black badly here and it's never able to fully recover. Things stall but the inevitability is there with Tradewind punishing every mana investment. Mono Black does very well to keep things interesting but really only because of Erhnam Djinn granting forest walk and allowing gravecrawler through. An exalted Djinn though is what does the final 10 points of damage for GUw. Mono Black simply couldn't kill it in combat. While the Erhnam Djinn has clearly aged, it's really not that far from playable in medium powered lists. It survives Wildfire which most green 4's don't and it hits reasonably hard. The drawback is bad if you are durdling but much less relevant in any sort of aggressive strategy. It's also splashable which is what I like best about it.
Game 3 GUw gets a T2 Troll Ascetic which is then rancor'd up. Still, Ophiomancer proves a very large stumbling block (1G regen is expensive) and GUw can't get enough on the table fast enough because of it. Mono black lucksacks a top deck Hymn to Tourach then into a swamp then into Lake of the Dead for some Necropotence fun. Sacrifice a swamp, Geralf's Messenger play Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Mono Black is in full control now. An 11 drain Gray Merchant of Asphodel basically ends all doubt. Even a Time Warp + Eternal Witness recast time warp (off Sunscape Familiar) isn't enough to matter.
Mono Black wins 2-1 and remains undefeated!
That's also 6 straight games without drawing Opposition... grrr... it's funny because I've had nights go like this where you make a deck and it should be good but it just loses because you don't draw the card(s) you built the deck around. Such is the life of singleton Magic. There's a good lesson here though in that we shouldn't be too quick to judge decks (even cards) based on limited performance. In an alternate reality where no one knew Opposition was broken in cube, I can see an influential cube manager using these two GUw matches to proclaim Opposition too inconsistent for cube and thus it never becoming a part of mainstream power cubing. Maybe a good thing in the case of opposition, but you get my point. There are a lot of really good cards which are not part of mainstream cubing because leading figures of this format dismissed them too early or never even tested them. That's unfortunate.
On a semi-related note, the mono black Lake/Nykthos/Necro/Gary package... It's really really broken. I say that not just from this one match. I've played variations of this deck many times now and it's always absurd once you get it going. In that last game I never had more than 3 lands in play. Lake into permanents into Nykthos is absolutely insane. My first use was 7 mana from three permanents and 3 lands (very easy to assemble). And from there I just traded swamps for what was essentially unlimited mana and life for cards which I strategically recouped with Gary. Not sure where the power level cut off is for this deck, but it's really high. It's probably good enough for just short of fully powered cubing.
Goblins vs Storm
This should be Storm's worst matchup, but let's see. The storm deck is pretty degenerate so who really knows?
Game 1 I keep a loose hand with Goblins. It's a mistake. T1 Lotus Bloom into T2 Pentad Prism into T4 Yawgmoth's Bargain sets the stage for a T5 combo win. Fastbond into an interim Tendrils of Agony with bargain out allowed me to draw my deck essentially. Mind's Desire into Palinchron makes it that much easier. Dream Halls and I can cast an unlimited number of spells and win anyway I want. Against a better more aggressive start, Storm would not have had the time or life to do half of what I did. So I put a very large asterisk next to this win.
Game 2 is more of what I expect. No 1 drop but Mogg War Marshal into Goblin Warchief into Blistering Firecat is plenty of pressure forcing Storm to try and go off early. Time spiral doesn't land the rituals needed for critical mass and the turn ends with a feeble Tendrils of Agony which is easily overcome by Gobos on the next turn. Textbook beat down.
Game 3 is a tad more interesting, but just barely. Gobo's keeps a hand with no 1 drop and again it doesn't matter. T2 Phyrexian Revoker to preemptively stop any bargain shenanigans and to get the beats on sets in motion what turns into a rout. Storm knowing it has no time drops a T3 Heartbeat of Spring. Suicidal against the hand I had with Goblins, but honestly I don't think there were better options. I knew storm was losing as soon as I saw my starting Gobo's hand. Didn't even matter what storm did. Goblin Recruiter sets up a gnarly Goblin Ringleader the following turn and an army rushes forward a moment later. It's a bloodbath. Storm delays immediate death with a weak Tendrils the turn prior and tries to go off with 1 life after the first rush. Storm count hits 6 but it's well short of decking Goblins who has 7 cards in hand in addition to lethal on board.
Goblins wins 2-1 (with an asterisk that this was really 3-0)!
This should be Storm's worst matchup, but let's see. The storm deck is pretty degenerate so who really knows?
Game 1 I keep a loose hand with Goblins. It's a mistake. T1 Lotus Bloom into T2 Pentad Prism into T4 Yawgmoth's Bargain sets the stage for a T5 combo win. Fastbond into an interim Tendrils of Agony with bargain out allowed me to draw my deck essentially. Mind's Desire into Palinchron makes it that much easier. Dream Halls and I can cast an unlimited number of spells and win anyway I want. Against a better more aggressive start, Storm would not have had the time or life to do half of what I did. So I put a very large asterisk next to this win.
Game 2 is more of what I expect. No 1 drop but Mogg War Marshal into Goblin Warchief into Blistering Firecat is plenty of pressure forcing Storm to try and go off early. Time spiral doesn't land the rituals needed for critical mass and the turn ends with a feeble Tendrils of Agony which is easily overcome by Gobos on the next turn. Textbook beat down.
Game 3 is a tad more interesting, but just barely. Gobo's keeps a hand with no 1 drop and again it doesn't matter. T2 Phyrexian Revoker to preemptively stop any bargain shenanigans and to get the beats on sets in motion what turns into a rout. Storm knowing it has no time drops a T3 Heartbeat of Spring. Suicidal against the hand I had with Goblins, but honestly I don't think there were better options. I knew storm was losing as soon as I saw my starting Gobo's hand. Didn't even matter what storm did. Goblin Recruiter sets up a gnarly Goblin Ringleader the following turn and an army rushes forward a moment later. It's a bloodbath. Storm delays immediate death with a weak Tendrils the turn prior and tries to go off with 1 life after the first rush. Storm count hits 6 but it's well short of decking Goblins who has 7 cards in hand in addition to lethal on board.
Goblins wins 2-1 (with an asterisk that this was really 3-0)!
WW vs Dimir Tinker Control
WW laid waste to the Rock, so let's see how it does against a combo control deck.
Game 1 is a classic. Early beats by WW answered by a swords to plowshares and a counterspell right after. Gifts Ungiven creates a really awkward choice: Supreme Verdict, Sphinx's Revelation, Engineered Explosives and Austere Command are all not cards WW wants Dimir to have. I end up taking verdict and explosives but I have no idea if that was the right split or right choice. I didn't have a 6th land in hand though, so rev and command though more powerful were less of a sure thing. Explosives, Tinker into Darksteel Colossus. WW holding Banisher Priest but I wait until verdict lands before playing it. Dimir on 6 life and staring down a rebuilt WW board thanks to some lucky top decks. Ranger of Eos fetches mother of runes and a beater. Mindslaver turn follows, suiciding banisher priest and getting back Darksteel. Nasty. WW still has enough life to absorb one blow from the colossus though, so they do. Solitari monk dual wielding bonesplitter + sword of fire and ice under mother of runes protection would be lethal if not for Dimir's ace in the hole - Shelldock Isle hiding Wing Shards. Monk swings and is then forced to be sacrificed, mother can do nothing, and Darksteel finishes the deed the next turn.
Plenty of different plays that could have swung this game one way or the other. I didn't play either side perfectly by any stretch of the imagination. The decision density was very high in this game. WW had Rishadan Port out and could have locked down Shelldock during combat but wouldn't have had enough to equip both weapons so would have had to swing with everything and hope it all got through (it would have). I have no idea what another player would do in that situation though or what I might even do not having perfect information. Games like this are why I still play Magic and cube specifically.
Game 2 I keep a sketchy hand for Dimir and don't draw any early disruption. Meanwhile, WW curves like a boss and runs Dimir over. T1 Soldier of the Pantheon, T2 Chrome Mox into Silverblade Paladin swing for 4. T3 Glorious Anthem, swing for 12. Dimir dies a horrible death on T4 without playing a single spell (it setup a shelldock, got a scry in and fetched for a dual land - that's all the time it got). Going first is a really big advantage in games where a deck curves into lethal on T4/5. Game 1 was awesome and game 2 was the polar opposite. It was awful with absolutely no decisions that mattered. These are the games that make me hate constructed Magic because that's how this felt.
Game 3 is (thankfully) another classic. Both draws are clunky but I keep both hands since I'm curious where it will go. WW flooded and Dimir needs to draw into more land or be pretty screwed. Shelldock T1 sets up a key Supreme Verdict that comes to fruition turns later. WW has nothing early but hit's a Thirst For Knowledge with a mana tithe and follows that up with a Chrome Mox into Emeria Angel T3. Momentum has shifted now. Game on. Counterspell stops Glorious Anthem from really making this serious. Engineered Explosives to deal with the tokens. It's not ideal but the damage is adding up fast and Dimir is getting too far behind. Dimir Ramps with Gilded Lotus and draws some cards. WW rebuilds and Dimir Auster Commands. WW follows with Ranger of Eos, Recruiter of the Guard into Stoneforge Mystic and then verdict lands from shelldock. The swings back and forth are quite enjoyable. Tinker into Darksteel Colossus, again answered by Banisher Priest but this time the priest eats removal. With Colossus looming, Gideon's Lawkeeper comes down and keeps it from being lethal. Soldier of the Pantheon gets loaded up with equipment and swings past Baleful Strix (protection from multicolored doing some work). Phyrexian Arena online for Dimir but it doesn't help. Three lands in a row and an unburial rites that does nothing. Soldier swings for lethal.
WW wins 2-1! Mono colored decks remain undefeated!
I thought WW might be too midrange for it to have a good chance against a control deck like this one, but it's just a solid deck with lots of answers and the potential for some bursty damage. Both game 1 and 3 had a ton of interesting things going on and different players would make different choices. I can see either game swinging one way or the other. Game 2 on the other hand was not competitive at all and there was only one way it was ever going to end.
WW laid waste to the Rock, so let's see how it does against a combo control deck.
Game 1 is a classic. Early beats by WW answered by a swords to plowshares and a counterspell right after. Gifts Ungiven creates a really awkward choice: Supreme Verdict, Sphinx's Revelation, Engineered Explosives and Austere Command are all not cards WW wants Dimir to have. I end up taking verdict and explosives but I have no idea if that was the right split or right choice. I didn't have a 6th land in hand though, so rev and command though more powerful were less of a sure thing. Explosives, Tinker into Darksteel Colossus. WW holding Banisher Priest but I wait until verdict lands before playing it. Dimir on 6 life and staring down a rebuilt WW board thanks to some lucky top decks. Ranger of Eos fetches mother of runes and a beater. Mindslaver turn follows, suiciding banisher priest and getting back Darksteel. Nasty. WW still has enough life to absorb one blow from the colossus though, so they do. Solitari monk dual wielding bonesplitter + sword of fire and ice under mother of runes protection would be lethal if not for Dimir's ace in the hole - Shelldock Isle hiding Wing Shards. Monk swings and is then forced to be sacrificed, mother can do nothing, and Darksteel finishes the deed the next turn.
Plenty of different plays that could have swung this game one way or the other. I didn't play either side perfectly by any stretch of the imagination. The decision density was very high in this game. WW had Rishadan Port out and could have locked down Shelldock during combat but wouldn't have had enough to equip both weapons so would have had to swing with everything and hope it all got through (it would have). I have no idea what another player would do in that situation though or what I might even do not having perfect information. Games like this are why I still play Magic and cube specifically.
Game 2 I keep a sketchy hand for Dimir and don't draw any early disruption. Meanwhile, WW curves like a boss and runs Dimir over. T1 Soldier of the Pantheon, T2 Chrome Mox into Silverblade Paladin swing for 4. T3 Glorious Anthem, swing for 12. Dimir dies a horrible death on T4 without playing a single spell (it setup a shelldock, got a scry in and fetched for a dual land - that's all the time it got). Going first is a really big advantage in games where a deck curves into lethal on T4/5. Game 1 was awesome and game 2 was the polar opposite. It was awful with absolutely no decisions that mattered. These are the games that make me hate constructed Magic because that's how this felt.
Game 3 is (thankfully) another classic. Both draws are clunky but I keep both hands since I'm curious where it will go. WW flooded and Dimir needs to draw into more land or be pretty screwed. Shelldock T1 sets up a key Supreme Verdict that comes to fruition turns later. WW has nothing early but hit's a Thirst For Knowledge with a mana tithe and follows that up with a Chrome Mox into Emeria Angel T3. Momentum has shifted now. Game on. Counterspell stops Glorious Anthem from really making this serious. Engineered Explosives to deal with the tokens. It's not ideal but the damage is adding up fast and Dimir is getting too far behind. Dimir Ramps with Gilded Lotus and draws some cards. WW rebuilds and Dimir Auster Commands. WW follows with Ranger of Eos, Recruiter of the Guard into Stoneforge Mystic and then verdict lands from shelldock. The swings back and forth are quite enjoyable. Tinker into Darksteel Colossus, again answered by Banisher Priest but this time the priest eats removal. With Colossus looming, Gideon's Lawkeeper comes down and keeps it from being lethal. Soldier of the Pantheon gets loaded up with equipment and swings past Baleful Strix (protection from multicolored doing some work). Phyrexian Arena online for Dimir but it doesn't help. Three lands in a row and an unburial rites that does nothing. Soldier swings for lethal.
WW wins 2-1! Mono colored decks remain undefeated!
I thought WW might be too midrange for it to have a good chance against a control deck like this one, but it's just a solid deck with lots of answers and the potential for some bursty damage. Both game 1 and 3 had a ton of interesting things going on and different players would make different choices. I can see either game swinging one way or the other. Game 2 on the other hand was not competitive at all and there was only one way it was ever going to end.
RBW Sacrifice Combo vs The Rock
I had made some impulse card swaps after the Rock got embarrassed by WW. I'm undoing one (Kokusho, the Evening Star comes back - I like it and I really don't want to run Noxious Gearhulk if I can help it), and swapping another. Trading Post comes in for Meren of clan Nel Toth. Meren is very busted and it basically makes Genesis look awful which makes me unhappy and goes against some of my design. I don't think I have to go that hard to make this deck work honestly. Trading post is just sweet and it adds life gain to the deck which really needs it. The Mardu sacrifice deck is fine I think. It's not very focused so I'm OK with it having a losing record after this is all said and done.
Game 1. Rock gets early start with Elves of Deep Shadow into Survival of the Fittest. Mardu stuck on two lands but gets a
Talisman of Indulgence. Vindicate for a trading post (maybe should have targeted survival but trading post was going to cause race problems with the life gain). Lingering Souls by Mardu to buy time (Mardu not drawing well). Rock drops evoked Reveillark into Karmic Guide combo gets a bone shredder to deal with the last token. Coast is clear for some beats finally but Sneak Attack with Feldon of the Third Path on board and Yosei, the Morning Star in hand threatens a lock. I go out of my way to kill Feldon just because I know what's coming but not sure that was the obvious play given the board state. Rock wins with an Angel of Despair. Interesting game that could have gone either way and maybe would have been won with the lock for Mardu in a real match.
Game 2. Mardu again with a mana rock on T2 into a Lingering Souls. Rock mana elf into Pernicious Deed. Satyr Wayfinder follows dumping Angel of Despair into the yard with Recurring Nightmare in hand. Uh oh. Mardu drops Olivia Voldaren. Deed to clear the board (probably blew this early TBH), elf, nightmare into Angel which dies to Vindicate (yeah that sequence was just totally misplayed but whatever). Mardu burning wish into Mind Twist for a lot. Doesn't really hurt the rock much with Genesis in hand (which goes to the yard with twist). Miraculous Recovery on Olivia but she eats a top decked cast out. Rock follows with a pay 3 (genesis), get back Satyr Wayfinder dumping more creatures into the yard. From there, nightmare becomes too hot to handle and the Rock grinds out the win.
Rock wins 2-0!
Recurring Nightmare is broken. I think that goes without saying. The rock is the perfect deck for it too since you want to get some cycles going. In modern cubes with a much more powerful top end creature suite, the card is just broken in everything. But you have to put more energy into it here making is (relatively) fair. I would normally say don't ever run Nightmare, but it feels perfectly fine in this cube truthfully. Genesis is a lovely little card and I'm glad I took Meren out before I did this match. This is a bit like Astral Slide which is really clunky blink. Genesis is really clunky GY value, but it's very satisfying to run a successful deck around it (much like slide). And it's very powerful as games go on. In game 1, I had so much in the yard I could have answered pretty much anything with it.
I had made some impulse card swaps after the Rock got embarrassed by WW. I'm undoing one (Kokusho, the Evening Star comes back - I like it and I really don't want to run Noxious Gearhulk if I can help it), and swapping another. Trading Post comes in for Meren of clan Nel Toth. Meren is very busted and it basically makes Genesis look awful which makes me unhappy and goes against some of my design. I don't think I have to go that hard to make this deck work honestly. Trading post is just sweet and it adds life gain to the deck which really needs it. The Mardu sacrifice deck is fine I think. It's not very focused so I'm OK with it having a losing record after this is all said and done.
Game 1. Rock gets early start with Elves of Deep Shadow into Survival of the Fittest. Mardu stuck on two lands but gets a
Talisman of Indulgence. Vindicate for a trading post (maybe should have targeted survival but trading post was going to cause race problems with the life gain). Lingering Souls by Mardu to buy time (Mardu not drawing well). Rock drops evoked Reveillark into Karmic Guide combo gets a bone shredder to deal with the last token. Coast is clear for some beats finally but Sneak Attack with Feldon of the Third Path on board and Yosei, the Morning Star in hand threatens a lock. I go out of my way to kill Feldon just because I know what's coming but not sure that was the obvious play given the board state. Rock wins with an Angel of Despair. Interesting game that could have gone either way and maybe would have been won with the lock for Mardu in a real match.
Game 2. Mardu again with a mana rock on T2 into a Lingering Souls. Rock mana elf into Pernicious Deed. Satyr Wayfinder follows dumping Angel of Despair into the yard with Recurring Nightmare in hand. Uh oh. Mardu drops Olivia Voldaren. Deed to clear the board (probably blew this early TBH), elf, nightmare into Angel which dies to Vindicate (yeah that sequence was just totally misplayed but whatever). Mardu burning wish into Mind Twist for a lot. Doesn't really hurt the rock much with Genesis in hand (which goes to the yard with twist). Miraculous Recovery on Olivia but she eats a top decked cast out. Rock follows with a pay 3 (genesis), get back Satyr Wayfinder dumping more creatures into the yard. From there, nightmare becomes too hot to handle and the Rock grinds out the win.
Rock wins 2-0!
Recurring Nightmare is broken. I think that goes without saying. The rock is the perfect deck for it too since you want to get some cycles going. In modern cubes with a much more powerful top end creature suite, the card is just broken in everything. But you have to put more energy into it here making is (relatively) fair. I would normally say don't ever run Nightmare, but it feels perfectly fine in this cube truthfully. Genesis is a lovely little card and I'm glad I took Meren out before I did this match. This is a bit like Astral Slide which is really clunky blink. Genesis is really clunky GY value, but it's very satisfying to run a successful deck around it (much like slide). And it's very powerful as games go on. In game 1, I had so much in the yard I could have answered pretty much anything with it.
UR Spells vs UWR Firemane Control
The UR Spells deck seems more focused, so that is what I think will come out on top here. My 3 color decks are proving to be more hot mess than sweet tech. But let's see what happens...
Game 1: Both decks trade early turns with counters and removal. UR Spells is generally able to get pressure going early but the draw just isn't there. Meanwhile, UWR sets up an Academy Rector and blows it up with their own Flametongue Kavu fetching Form of the Dragon. UR Spells replies next turn with a kicked Into the Roil on Form (oh God that sucks). URW now at 5 life and in deep trouble. Pyroclasm isn't good enough as UR Spells brainstorms in response to save Monastery Swiftspear. Three lands revealed off of brainstorm though, so UR spells shooting blanks on the next two draws. Ancestral Visions on suspend though, so gas is coming. UWR casts Oblivion Ring to deal with Talrand, Sky Summoner as they desperately search for a 6th land to get something big into play. Swiftspear pecking away as turns go by. Finally the 6th land for URW but it's City of Brass - LOL, face palm - totally not what URW needs with 1 life - and they proceed to die to the lowly swiftspear. Wow. That was a rough game for both sides, but especially URW. That bounced form of the dragon was just brutal. It was essentially a 2UU, bounce, draw a card, opponent loses 12 life. Good lord that was tragic.
Game 2: Slow start by URW. Not a good sign. UR spells T1 swiftspear into T2 remand. Swiftspear dies to Burst Lightning but Looter il-Kor by UR spells starts building a sweet hand. Meanwhile, URW fumbling around for plays evokes a mulldrifter into some garbage (really needed a break there). Too many ETB tapped lands and not enough early interaction is turning this game into a train wreck for URW. UR spells drops standstill with a sizable board lead. Not much to be done, so draw 3 cards off an exalted angel and try and hold off the beats. UR spells Young Pyromancer, looters into Tangle Wire. LOL.. Oh boy. URW pretty much dead man walking now. UR spells chipping away with looter. I could be swinging with Exalted angel but it's not a race I'd be winning. Basalt Monolith by URW meets snapcaster mage into remand. UR spells draws into more counters. The draw for UR spells started OK but has turned into an absolute masterpiece at this point. Talrand on the board with counter backup. So many plays I don't even know which to do. I could push things but I'm winning every single element of the game - board, card advantage, counter war, you name it - so it doesn't even matter. Into the Roil on angel, cast two instants, make a bunch of tokens, swing for a lot. Still have counter backup so there's no way I can think of for URW to come back. Scoop.
UR Spells wins 2-0!
Yeah, these 3 color decks are not doing well. Other than the rock and storm, every one has lost so far. I guess they eventually play one another so they can't keep losing but this is a pretty anemic showing for control in general. To be fair, these are the least focused of the decks so I'm not entirely displeased by this turn of events. But it's making me question some card choices. We'll see if this pattern continues. If it does, I probably need to start thinking about beefing a few of the high end win cons or weakening some of the agro components.
The UR Spells deck seems more focused, so that is what I think will come out on top here. My 3 color decks are proving to be more hot mess than sweet tech. But let's see what happens...
Game 1: Both decks trade early turns with counters and removal. UR Spells is generally able to get pressure going early but the draw just isn't there. Meanwhile, UWR sets up an Academy Rector and blows it up with their own Flametongue Kavu fetching Form of the Dragon. UR Spells replies next turn with a kicked Into the Roil on Form (oh God that sucks). URW now at 5 life and in deep trouble. Pyroclasm isn't good enough as UR Spells brainstorms in response to save Monastery Swiftspear. Three lands revealed off of brainstorm though, so UR spells shooting blanks on the next two draws. Ancestral Visions on suspend though, so gas is coming. UWR casts Oblivion Ring to deal with Talrand, Sky Summoner as they desperately search for a 6th land to get something big into play. Swiftspear pecking away as turns go by. Finally the 6th land for URW but it's City of Brass - LOL, face palm - totally not what URW needs with 1 life - and they proceed to die to the lowly swiftspear. Wow. That was a rough game for both sides, but especially URW. That bounced form of the dragon was just brutal. It was essentially a 2UU, bounce, draw a card, opponent loses 12 life. Good lord that was tragic.
Game 2: Slow start by URW. Not a good sign. UR spells T1 swiftspear into T2 remand. Swiftspear dies to Burst Lightning but Looter il-Kor by UR spells starts building a sweet hand. Meanwhile, URW fumbling around for plays evokes a mulldrifter into some garbage (really needed a break there). Too many ETB tapped lands and not enough early interaction is turning this game into a train wreck for URW. UR spells drops standstill with a sizable board lead. Not much to be done, so draw 3 cards off an exalted angel and try and hold off the beats. UR spells Young Pyromancer, looters into Tangle Wire. LOL.. Oh boy. URW pretty much dead man walking now. UR spells chipping away with looter. I could be swinging with Exalted angel but it's not a race I'd be winning. Basalt Monolith by URW meets snapcaster mage into remand. UR spells draws into more counters. The draw for UR spells started OK but has turned into an absolute masterpiece at this point. Talrand on the board with counter backup. So many plays I don't even know which to do. I could push things but I'm winning every single element of the game - board, card advantage, counter war, you name it - so it doesn't even matter. Into the Roil on angel, cast two instants, make a bunch of tokens, swing for a lot. Still have counter backup so there's no way I can think of for URW to come back. Scoop.
UR Spells wins 2-0!
Yeah, these 3 color decks are not doing well. Other than the rock and storm, every one has lost so far. I guess they eventually play one another so they can't keep losing but this is a pretty anemic showing for control in general. To be fair, these are the least focused of the decks so I'm not entirely displeased by this turn of events. But it's making me question some card choices. We'll see if this pattern continues. If it does, I probably need to start thinking about beefing a few of the high end win cons or weakening some of the agro components.
Dimir Psychatog Control vs Elves!
Elves is technically a midrange deck, so in theory Dimir has the advantage if traditional Roshambo holds true here (control > midrange > aggro > control). I think the Elf deck is sweet though and it does have combo elements to it (plus I think Roshambo in cube is overstated anyway), but let’s see what happens. I expect it will be very competitive regardless. This Dimir deck did well in the last match even though it lost.
Game 1: Elves off to a slow start. Maybe should have mulled, but opted to play it because the top end on this deck is extremely good. Dimir also starts slow just builds mana and draws card. First real play is Wood Elves into Deranged Hermit. Sensei’s divining Top finds no answer, so Mystical Tutor for Toxic Deluge. Elves follows with Primeval Titan which meets innocent blood. Dimir with Thran Dynamo into Future Sight. Future sight really sweet with top FWIW. Elves goes Avenger of Zendikar make 8 tokens and then into a land. This is going to get out of hand really fast. But Dimir finds removal for avenger so it’s salvageable. Natural order a token into Terastodon though and things go back to looking bad. Future sight becomes a beast, Elves turns two lands into beasts. Let the beats begin… or not. Top finds upheaval. Reset the board. It’s not a great upheaval but there was no other choice really. I misplay the upheaval a bit getting greedy for dynamo. Elves recovers like a boss. One drop into wall of roots into reclamation sage blow up Dynamo. That’s a punt on my part because Dimir saw the rec sage already so there was no excuse for me playing that sequence. Dimir not epically punished though. Tombstalker is just what the doctor ordered with a million cards in the yard. Elves on a clock now with no real offense and no answer to a giant flyer. Pattern of Rebirth on Rec Sage but Dimir not blocking that anytime soon. The race works out for Dimir but just barely. Dimir smashes with stalker for lethal while on low life. Dimir should have won more easily but a win is a win.
Game 2: Is nothing short of amazing. Dimir keeps a land rich hand on the draw but it’s got Top T1 and Dark Confidant T2 (Bob in this deck is unconventional but it combos really well with top). Elves though off to the races with T1 Llanowar Elves into T2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Dimir digs for removal and can only find innocent blood. Elves stuck on two lands so it does enough for now (Rofellos lives but isn’t busted on two lands). Wall of Roots comes down followed by Kodama of the North Tree. Elves if they weren’t mana hosed would be laying waste right now sitting on a hand full of goodness they just can't play. Super bad play moment number 2 - A turn prior Dimir had used top and found Toxic Deluge but didn’t stack it properly. That forces me into using the second ability on top to get it in hand so I don’t eat like 10 damage. Deluge for 4 and we are back square but I’m about to be really punished. Volrath’s stronghold a turn later to get back Bob (Dimir needs cards). But I roll the dice and don’t get top back into play immediately so I can play a mind stone and get more mana. This bites me hard as Dark Confidant proceeds to flip Tombstalker. LOL. Fuck. Dimir drops to 7 life. Future Sight and top back in play. Tombstalker for full delve and I’m thinking things are good again despite my stupidity. Elves meanwhile have gas in hand and finally draws land. Beast Within on the Future Sight. Natural Order into Prime Time gets more land and threatens trample so I can’t just chump it. Silvos, Rogue Elemental and Terastodon in hand. Elves swings with Titan and Treetop Village. Beast token trades with treetop, titan 6 to the face. Dimir at 1 now. Sower of Temptation off top dig steals Titan and is joined by morphling. I can’t protect superman, but barring burn I win on the next swing. That doesn’t happen though as Elves proceeds to top deck… fireball. Well, shit. Dimir deserved to lose that in all fairness. I took 8 from Bob and I didn’t need to if I had played top better. That was Karma.
Game 3: Dimir gets a big lead early and keeps it. Textbook control start to finish. This Dimir deck is actually good, but going first here is the big factor in how it plays out. T1 top, T2 Night’s Whisper. Elves T1 elf into t2 Ohran Viper. Dimir answers with Toxic Deluge. Elves stuck on 2 lands again, no play T3. Dimir T4 Befoul a forest. Just plain rude. Elves doesn’t draw a forest again and has nothing. Dimir drops Bob with Mana leak backup. Elves gets the forest, Sylvan Library which is countered. More salt in that wound you got there? Dimir Duress taking Beast Within. Now I’m just being a dick to myself. Dimir eventually gets Morphing and then Future Sight with top combo (I drew that every game… wow). Elves finally gets some luck, Wood Elves into Harmonize. Mana problems resolved. The Dimir deck is damn slow to kill so Elves way behind but not actually completely dead yet. Shriekmaw deals with the elves to get some beats in, but Primeval Titan follows the next turn. Innocent Blood deals with that, Bob sac’d. Morphling swings and pumps - pretty fun watching this card actually win a game BTW. With this much mana out, Superman can’t be killed and it’s whatever I want it to be (attacker, blocker, flyer, all of the above). Dimir finds Force of Will and Upheaval with top, both in hand now. Elves has a lot of land and tons of things to play, but no way past force in time to not die to Shriekmaw and Morphing. Elves had Primal command in hand that would have bought a turn and maybe changed the race, but there's no way to get it past force and not enough mana to realistically bait out the counter.
Dimir wins 2-1!
So yeah, this control deck is tight. Funny that it was almost an afterthought when I bumped my list up in size. But so many of the elements work well together. I know many have banned Sensei’s divining top from cube. I get why (I did for a while). In the hands of a bad player, this thing is obnoxious. But it combos with a lot of powerful effects. Oracle of Mul Daya, Future Sight, miracles. Card is cool in the right context and it’s skill intensive too, so I appreciate it for that. I used it effectively in the two games Dimir won, and I misplayed with it in the game I lost. Games were long and there was more to it of course, but the impact of how well I used top was not inconsequential to the outcome.
Elves is technically a midrange deck, so in theory Dimir has the advantage if traditional Roshambo holds true here (control > midrange > aggro > control). I think the Elf deck is sweet though and it does have combo elements to it (plus I think Roshambo in cube is overstated anyway), but let’s see what happens. I expect it will be very competitive regardless. This Dimir deck did well in the last match even though it lost.
Game 1: Elves off to a slow start. Maybe should have mulled, but opted to play it because the top end on this deck is extremely good. Dimir also starts slow just builds mana and draws card. First real play is Wood Elves into Deranged Hermit. Sensei’s divining Top finds no answer, so Mystical Tutor for Toxic Deluge. Elves follows with Primeval Titan which meets innocent blood. Dimir with Thran Dynamo into Future Sight. Future sight really sweet with top FWIW. Elves goes Avenger of Zendikar make 8 tokens and then into a land. This is going to get out of hand really fast. But Dimir finds removal for avenger so it’s salvageable. Natural order a token into Terastodon though and things go back to looking bad. Future sight becomes a beast, Elves turns two lands into beasts. Let the beats begin… or not. Top finds upheaval. Reset the board. It’s not a great upheaval but there was no other choice really. I misplay the upheaval a bit getting greedy for dynamo. Elves recovers like a boss. One drop into wall of roots into reclamation sage blow up Dynamo. That’s a punt on my part because Dimir saw the rec sage already so there was no excuse for me playing that sequence. Dimir not epically punished though. Tombstalker is just what the doctor ordered with a million cards in the yard. Elves on a clock now with no real offense and no answer to a giant flyer. Pattern of Rebirth on Rec Sage but Dimir not blocking that anytime soon. The race works out for Dimir but just barely. Dimir smashes with stalker for lethal while on low life. Dimir should have won more easily but a win is a win.
Game 2: Is nothing short of amazing. Dimir keeps a land rich hand on the draw but it’s got Top T1 and Dark Confidant T2 (Bob in this deck is unconventional but it combos really well with top). Elves though off to the races with T1 Llanowar Elves into T2 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Dimir digs for removal and can only find innocent blood. Elves stuck on two lands so it does enough for now (Rofellos lives but isn’t busted on two lands). Wall of Roots comes down followed by Kodama of the North Tree. Elves if they weren’t mana hosed would be laying waste right now sitting on a hand full of goodness they just can't play. Super bad play moment number 2 - A turn prior Dimir had used top and found Toxic Deluge but didn’t stack it properly. That forces me into using the second ability on top to get it in hand so I don’t eat like 10 damage. Deluge for 4 and we are back square but I’m about to be really punished. Volrath’s stronghold a turn later to get back Bob (Dimir needs cards). But I roll the dice and don’t get top back into play immediately so I can play a mind stone and get more mana. This bites me hard as Dark Confidant proceeds to flip Tombstalker. LOL. Fuck. Dimir drops to 7 life. Future Sight and top back in play. Tombstalker for full delve and I’m thinking things are good again despite my stupidity. Elves meanwhile have gas in hand and finally draws land. Beast Within on the Future Sight. Natural Order into Prime Time gets more land and threatens trample so I can’t just chump it. Silvos, Rogue Elemental and Terastodon in hand. Elves swings with Titan and Treetop Village. Beast token trades with treetop, titan 6 to the face. Dimir at 1 now. Sower of Temptation off top dig steals Titan and is joined by morphling. I can’t protect superman, but barring burn I win on the next swing. That doesn’t happen though as Elves proceeds to top deck… fireball. Well, shit. Dimir deserved to lose that in all fairness. I took 8 from Bob and I didn’t need to if I had played top better. That was Karma.
Game 3: Dimir gets a big lead early and keeps it. Textbook control start to finish. This Dimir deck is actually good, but going first here is the big factor in how it plays out. T1 top, T2 Night’s Whisper. Elves T1 elf into t2 Ohran Viper. Dimir answers with Toxic Deluge. Elves stuck on 2 lands again, no play T3. Dimir T4 Befoul a forest. Just plain rude. Elves doesn’t draw a forest again and has nothing. Dimir drops Bob with Mana leak backup. Elves gets the forest, Sylvan Library which is countered. More salt in that wound you got there? Dimir Duress taking Beast Within. Now I’m just being a dick to myself. Dimir eventually gets Morphing and then Future Sight with top combo (I drew that every game… wow). Elves finally gets some luck, Wood Elves into Harmonize. Mana problems resolved. The Dimir deck is damn slow to kill so Elves way behind but not actually completely dead yet. Shriekmaw deals with the elves to get some beats in, but Primeval Titan follows the next turn. Innocent Blood deals with that, Bob sac’d. Morphling swings and pumps - pretty fun watching this card actually win a game BTW. With this much mana out, Superman can’t be killed and it’s whatever I want it to be (attacker, blocker, flyer, all of the above). Dimir finds Force of Will and Upheaval with top, both in hand now. Elves has a lot of land and tons of things to play, but no way past force in time to not die to Shriekmaw and Morphing. Elves had Primal command in hand that would have bought a turn and maybe changed the race, but there's no way to get it past force and not enough mana to realistically bait out the counter.
Dimir wins 2-1!
So yeah, this control deck is tight. Funny that it was almost an afterthought when I bumped my list up in size. But so many of the elements work well together. I know many have banned Sensei’s divining top from cube. I get why (I did for a while). In the hands of a bad player, this thing is obnoxious. But it combos with a lot of powerful effects. Oracle of Mul Daya, Future Sight, miracles. Card is cool in the right context and it’s skill intensive too, so I appreciate it for that. I used it effectively in the two games Dimir won, and I misplayed with it in the game I lost. Games were long and there was more to it of course, but the impact of how well I used top was not inconsequential to the outcome.
Update:
13 matches completed so far. 78 to go. I'm 1/7 the way through (yippie!). Making a few card swaps. The three color control decks are not very focused. More importantly perhaps, I think they need a little more early game interaction to keep up with the aggressive decks. The changes therefore are focused mostly on three decks - RBW, UWR and GWB. Here's a basic summary of the swaps.
Out >> In
Into the Roil >> Snap - I was unhappy with the beating roil dolled out to rector into form. It was a prime example of where simple bounce is just horribly game breaking in certain scenarios. If I have a format encouraging some big finishers that require hoops to get into play, having that undone with a 2 mana good stuff spell is just poor design. I debated on taking out Vensar as well, but he stays for now since I really want to see him get abused with Astral Slide. Instead of Snap I could have made this Repeal - which is a really nice design since you have to spend more than what you are bouncing (but it still draws a card so control likes it) - but the UR deck is tempo and Snap is the better tempo card.
Daze >> As Foretold - I really just want to test this card TBH though technically it helps the UWR deck be more combo. I guess it's another enchantment for rector but it seems like a weak target since this card will only be good after a few turns in play. Seems great in a Wildfire deck though and that's what I'll be using it in for testing. Lay it early, ramp, blow up the world, cast your entire deck for free. This should also be sweet with Upheaval.
Prophetic Bolt >> Fire // Ice - Early game interaction. Prophetic Bolt is a good card. But Fire//Ice is more versatile and impacts the game during the vital early turns. It's dividable burn which I don't love but agro is not having issues so shouldn't be a problem.
Pyroclasm >> Desperate Ravings - I want more discard outlets in red. This one is random, so it's fairly weak if you want to discard something specific. It is CA though. I've played with ravings before and it's better than it looks. The randomness of the cards makes it weaker in combo but control really isn't as hurt by this as you might think. This digs you into land or out of flood effectively in the early game - both vital for control. And if you have a card that you absolutely cannot lose to discard, well don’t play ravings until you cast it. As the saying goes, you aren’t forced to play bad Magic.
Wheel of Fortune >> Bonfire of the Damned - this is just a swap from burning wish side board to main cube. I want the miracle deck to have more than Entreat the Angels as a target so it's slightly more defined as an archetype. I don't like Bonfire as a card and I may end up regretting this change. Wheel is super powerful and so having to wish for it seems fair to me. Storm is really the only thing hurt by this swap and technically the deck is better with burning wish instead since it can get things like Cruel Ultimatum if Dream Halls is in play (or mind twist or bribery - burning wish is busted).
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker >> Outpost Siege - more support for the sacrifice deck. Outpost is really good for those reading this who haven't run it. Both modes are useful and they both support the same deck (some modal cards have poor synergy between modes but not siege). Sometimes you have a board and need the sacrifice or death trigger effect. Sometimes you have no board and you need cards. This does either you need and does them both pretty well. Siege was a key card in the sacrifice archetype in my midrange cube so I’m pretty certain this is an upgrade.
Decree of Justice >> Condemn - Early interaction and a control specific card. Decree was there for slide. But I'm finding the LFTL + cycle lands to be good enough of an engine. Decree needs Witness to really be a loop and that's going to be less reliable in draft to assemble.
Enlightened Tutor >> Angel of Invention - Enlightened Tutor sucks, simply put. In a powered cube or with maybe some more OP stuff it might be worth card disadvantage, but I don't really feel the effect is worth the cost most of the time. Angel I've played before and it's very powerful. Adding a new keyword (fabricate) does not please me so I might swap this at some point for something else. I think this card has nice overlap though since it feeds artifacts, tokens and anthems. A WW deck would run this and be just as happy about it as a control deck so it's hard to ignore that flexibility.
Silvos, Rogue Elemental >> Sakura-Tribe Elder - more early interaction. The Elf deck has one too many top end cards. Prime Time is super powerful and I can see it maybe being the better cut for balance, but I wanted the green creatures to be superior to other colors at least at high cost. That's supposed to be green's thing. Elder has a lot of uses and isn't just a top end target for ramp like Silvos.
Quirion Ranger >> Scryb Ranger - I love this effect but the body just sucks on Quirion. Scryb has flying, flash and pro-blue. Well worth 1 more mana. It's going to be much better in the Bant deck simply because it will carry a Rancor like a champ and combo better with draw go gameplay.
Erhnam Djinn >> Eidolon of Blossoms - this one hurts. I like Djinn, I really do. But I want to have more things to abuse with replenish. Oracle of Mul Daya moves to the Bant deck and GRW gets more enchantment pieces for replenish. Maybe there’s a better cut but maybe I also just need to accept the cut and move on.
Animate Dead >> Doomwake Giant - I have enough reanimation spells I think. Giant is the second (and best) constellation card and another piece for replenish. I've tested these together before and it's a powerful combination. The Rock will have some very powerful combo elements now, particularly with Recurring Nightmare which can be replayed and get back either constellation creature. This adds a new dimension to the deck I'm excited about.
13 matches completed so far. 78 to go. I'm 1/7 the way through (yippie!). Making a few card swaps. The three color control decks are not very focused. More importantly perhaps, I think they need a little more early game interaction to keep up with the aggressive decks. The changes therefore are focused mostly on three decks - RBW, UWR and GWB. Here's a basic summary of the swaps.
Out >> In
Into the Roil >> Snap - I was unhappy with the beating roil dolled out to rector into form. It was a prime example of where simple bounce is just horribly game breaking in certain scenarios. If I have a format encouraging some big finishers that require hoops to get into play, having that undone with a 2 mana good stuff spell is just poor design. I debated on taking out Vensar as well, but he stays for now since I really want to see him get abused with Astral Slide. Instead of Snap I could have made this Repeal - which is a really nice design since you have to spend more than what you are bouncing (but it still draws a card so control likes it) - but the UR deck is tempo and Snap is the better tempo card.
Daze >> As Foretold - I really just want to test this card TBH though technically it helps the UWR deck be more combo. I guess it's another enchantment for rector but it seems like a weak target since this card will only be good after a few turns in play. Seems great in a Wildfire deck though and that's what I'll be using it in for testing. Lay it early, ramp, blow up the world, cast your entire deck for free. This should also be sweet with Upheaval.
Prophetic Bolt >> Fire // Ice - Early game interaction. Prophetic Bolt is a good card. But Fire//Ice is more versatile and impacts the game during the vital early turns. It's dividable burn which I don't love but agro is not having issues so shouldn't be a problem.
Pyroclasm >> Desperate Ravings - I want more discard outlets in red. This one is random, so it's fairly weak if you want to discard something specific. It is CA though. I've played with ravings before and it's better than it looks. The randomness of the cards makes it weaker in combo but control really isn't as hurt by this as you might think. This digs you into land or out of flood effectively in the early game - both vital for control. And if you have a card that you absolutely cannot lose to discard, well don’t play ravings until you cast it. As the saying goes, you aren’t forced to play bad Magic.
Wheel of Fortune >> Bonfire of the Damned - this is just a swap from burning wish side board to main cube. I want the miracle deck to have more than Entreat the Angels as a target so it's slightly more defined as an archetype. I don't like Bonfire as a card and I may end up regretting this change. Wheel is super powerful and so having to wish for it seems fair to me. Storm is really the only thing hurt by this swap and technically the deck is better with burning wish instead since it can get things like Cruel Ultimatum if Dream Halls is in play (or mind twist or bribery - burning wish is busted).
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker >> Outpost Siege - more support for the sacrifice deck. Outpost is really good for those reading this who haven't run it. Both modes are useful and they both support the same deck (some modal cards have poor synergy between modes but not siege). Sometimes you have a board and need the sacrifice or death trigger effect. Sometimes you have no board and you need cards. This does either you need and does them both pretty well. Siege was a key card in the sacrifice archetype in my midrange cube so I’m pretty certain this is an upgrade.
Decree of Justice >> Condemn - Early interaction and a control specific card. Decree was there for slide. But I'm finding the LFTL + cycle lands to be good enough of an engine. Decree needs Witness to really be a loop and that's going to be less reliable in draft to assemble.
Enlightened Tutor >> Angel of Invention - Enlightened Tutor sucks, simply put. In a powered cube or with maybe some more OP stuff it might be worth card disadvantage, but I don't really feel the effect is worth the cost most of the time. Angel I've played before and it's very powerful. Adding a new keyword (fabricate) does not please me so I might swap this at some point for something else. I think this card has nice overlap though since it feeds artifacts, tokens and anthems. A WW deck would run this and be just as happy about it as a control deck so it's hard to ignore that flexibility.
Silvos, Rogue Elemental >> Sakura-Tribe Elder - more early interaction. The Elf deck has one too many top end cards. Prime Time is super powerful and I can see it maybe being the better cut for balance, but I wanted the green creatures to be superior to other colors at least at high cost. That's supposed to be green's thing. Elder has a lot of uses and isn't just a top end target for ramp like Silvos.
Quirion Ranger >> Scryb Ranger - I love this effect but the body just sucks on Quirion. Scryb has flying, flash and pro-blue. Well worth 1 more mana. It's going to be much better in the Bant deck simply because it will carry a Rancor like a champ and combo better with draw go gameplay.
Erhnam Djinn >> Eidolon of Blossoms - this one hurts. I like Djinn, I really do. But I want to have more things to abuse with replenish. Oracle of Mul Daya moves to the Bant deck and GRW gets more enchantment pieces for replenish. Maybe there’s a better cut but maybe I also just need to accept the cut and move on.
Animate Dead >> Doomwake Giant - I have enough reanimation spells I think. Giant is the second (and best) constellation card and another piece for replenish. I've tested these together before and it's a powerful combination. The Rock will have some very powerful combo elements now, particularly with Recurring Nightmare which can be replayed and get back either constellation creature. This adds a new dimension to the deck I'm excited about.
RBW Miracle Sacrifice vs UWR Wildfire Combo
So the Mardu deck got more focused. I cut the Sneak Attack combo and moved more into sacrifice. I beefed the miracle component a tad as well. UWR is now a bit more about Wildfire. It gains sneak attack and also Feldon/Yosei. So the deck is very solidly combo and a little less about random good stuff. I think it still needs work but let’s see how it goes. Good thing about this match is that one of the decks will win regardless.
Game 1: UWR starts with some cycling to get lands sorted out. Desperate Ravings dumps Feldon of the Third Path to the yard. It’s OK though because I draw into Sneak Attack and Yosei, the Morning Star. Word. RBW goes Goblin Welder, Talisman of Indulgence, swing. 20 turn clock initiated. UWR drops As ForeTold which gets immediately Vindicated (bummer, wanted to see it in action). UWR drops Sneak Attack, go. Maybe should have saved the Vindicate. RBW fetches holding a bunch of instants and waits to see what comes down. Sneak attack in Academy Rector (oh lord) and Yosei. That’s really brutal. But it’s not brutal enough. This next play is sick (assuming I didn’t screw up the timing - I feel like this needs a judge to confirm). End of turn triggers on the stack, RBW taps mana and holds it, plays Firestorm discarding Triskelion deal 1 damage to - doesn’t matter. Welder sac talisman to get back Trike. Yosie trigger resolves, taps everything for RBW (mana still in pool though). Form of the Dragon comes into play, dropping RWU to 5 life. RBW then plays Kolaghan’s Command dealing 2 to RWU, Trike removes all 3 counters and deals the final 3 damage. Game. If RBW doesn’t get priority again after form drops RWU to 5, then clearly this doesn’t work though and RWU would have won the game on the next turn.
Game 2: Early misplay puts UWR in a bad position. I cycled Forsake the Worldly and I shouldn’t have. RBW with Talisman of Indulgence. UWR Ice Talisman to try and buy a little time. More misplaying as I drop Monastery Mentor right into a seal of fire ON THE FUCKING BOARD. lol. Man, I am clearly tired. RBW lingering souls with flashback gets the beats on. Follows with Outpost Siege in ping mode. That’s going to be what ends up sealing the deal. UWR Sneak Attacks in a Crater Hellion but eats 5 more damage from the tokens plus a welder that die. UWR with As Foretold, but it’s late and there won’t be time for this to do much sadly. RBW top decks Entreat the Angels but I screwed up my land sequence so can’t miracle it (doh). Amateur night with this game all around, good grief. RBW drops blood artist as consolation prize (with Siege, it's very dangerous to be fair). UWR drawing into more lands and no threats for Sneak, but burst lightnings the blood artist (eating 2 more damage). That was free off As Foretold FWIW and the best scenario that could have played out under the circumstances. UWR getting bled to death with paper cuts though. RBW finds scroll rack and sets up the epic Entreat for 5 angels. Doesn’t even matter that UWR can immediately wrath because that’s 5 more damage from siege and lethal at this point.
RBW wins 2-0! RBW wins 2-1!
So game 2, that’s how sacrifice worked in my midrange list. Get dudes on the board and setup blood artist/outpost siege. Wraths don’t matter. Blocking and killing stuff is as bad as letting it all through. You just can’t easily counter this gameplay because everything you do against it costs you life. Much happier with this version of the Mardu deck. Jury is still out on UWR. I feel like it’s improved and this was just not a great matchup. I also got sort of unlucky in game 1 with that crazy EOT play and I made way too many mistakes in game 2 which could have theoretically made the game more competitive (though I think I was going to lose regardless - RBW drew all the cards it needs to be very hard to beat).
EDIT: I think Form sets life at the beginning of the end step. Which, if I understand it, would have passed once the sacrifice triggers off Sneak Attack resolved. Meaning RWU would not have been at 5 life since that effect would not have happened that turn. Based on that, I think RWU would have won game 1. RBW was tapped and without an untap step due to Yosei dying. There was no way to deal 5 damage (Trike was only 3). And RWU had the game won on untap between 5 damage from Form and a crater hellion in hand for sneak. So match is 1-1. I'll play a deciding game 3 tomorrow.
Game 3: Coffee break Magic... ah the memories. UWR opens with Desperate Ravings, discard garbage draw into lands - I do like this card a lot. RBW, Firestorm discard Firemane Angel to gain some life should the game go long. UWR plays As Foretold. RBW has Vindicate in hand but I opt to hold it this time and pass. Next turn I play Abyssal Persecutor to start serious beats. UWR has no answer for that immediately and eats 6 to the face, but does draw into Wrath of God the next turn. Sick burn though as RBW casts Miraculous Recovery EOT to bring persecutor back. This proves too much to deal with now that's it's a 7/7. UWR had Crater Hellion and Wildfire in hand with Burst Lightning. 6 damage it could answer but not 7. Angel of Invention buys a turns as a suicide blocker. RBW still holding that Vindicate, swings for lethal the following turn and then offs Persecutor. Had I played Vindicate earlier on anything, UWR may have had a chance to come back. As Foretold got up to 4 counters. At 6, it could have played two 6 mana spells and maybe had some options. But it was not meant to be. RBW wins the match.
So end result was still the same. RBW is the victor. Abyssal Persecutor is a really powerful card. Either you can remove it or you just die to it. The drawback on it is very easily mitigated. You can often kill it yourself and even if you can't, your opponent generally cannot allow you to beat them to death with it and hope you can't off persecutor. So your opponent usually kills it for you after taking a lot of damage from it. As Foretold is slow. I can see it working in longer games but my list might be too fast for this to really be a thing here.
So the Mardu deck got more focused. I cut the Sneak Attack combo and moved more into sacrifice. I beefed the miracle component a tad as well. UWR is now a bit more about Wildfire. It gains sneak attack and also Feldon/Yosei. So the deck is very solidly combo and a little less about random good stuff. I think it still needs work but let’s see how it goes. Good thing about this match is that one of the decks will win regardless.
Game 1: UWR starts with some cycling to get lands sorted out. Desperate Ravings dumps Feldon of the Third Path to the yard. It’s OK though because I draw into Sneak Attack and Yosei, the Morning Star. Word. RBW goes Goblin Welder, Talisman of Indulgence, swing. 20 turn clock initiated. UWR drops As ForeTold which gets immediately Vindicated (bummer, wanted to see it in action). UWR drops Sneak Attack, go. Maybe should have saved the Vindicate. RBW fetches holding a bunch of instants and waits to see what comes down. Sneak attack in Academy Rector (oh lord) and Yosei. That’s really brutal. But it’s not brutal enough. This next play is sick (assuming I didn’t screw up the timing - I feel like this needs a judge to confirm). End of turn triggers on the stack, RBW taps mana and holds it, plays Firestorm discarding Triskelion deal 1 damage to - doesn’t matter. Welder sac talisman to get back Trike. Yosie trigger resolves, taps everything for RBW (mana still in pool though). Form of the Dragon comes into play, dropping RWU to 5 life. RBW then plays Kolaghan’s Command dealing 2 to RWU, Trike removes all 3 counters and deals the final 3 damage. Game. If RBW doesn’t get priority again after form drops RWU to 5, then clearly this doesn’t work though and RWU would have won the game on the next turn.
Game 2: Early misplay puts UWR in a bad position. I cycled Forsake the Worldly and I shouldn’t have. RBW with Talisman of Indulgence. UWR Ice Talisman to try and buy a little time. More misplaying as I drop Monastery Mentor right into a seal of fire ON THE FUCKING BOARD. lol. Man, I am clearly tired. RBW lingering souls with flashback gets the beats on. Follows with Outpost Siege in ping mode. That’s going to be what ends up sealing the deal. UWR Sneak Attacks in a Crater Hellion but eats 5 more damage from the tokens plus a welder that die. UWR with As Foretold, but it’s late and there won’t be time for this to do much sadly. RBW top decks Entreat the Angels but I screwed up my land sequence so can’t miracle it (doh). Amateur night with this game all around, good grief. RBW drops blood artist as consolation prize (with Siege, it's very dangerous to be fair). UWR drawing into more lands and no threats for Sneak, but burst lightnings the blood artist (eating 2 more damage). That was free off As Foretold FWIW and the best scenario that could have played out under the circumstances. UWR getting bled to death with paper cuts though. RBW finds scroll rack and sets up the epic Entreat for 5 angels. Doesn’t even matter that UWR can immediately wrath because that’s 5 more damage from siege and lethal at this point.
So game 2, that’s how sacrifice worked in my midrange list. Get dudes on the board and setup blood artist/outpost siege. Wraths don’t matter. Blocking and killing stuff is as bad as letting it all through. You just can’t easily counter this gameplay because everything you do against it costs you life. Much happier with this version of the Mardu deck. Jury is still out on UWR. I feel like it’s improved and this was just not a great matchup. I also got sort of unlucky in game 1 with that crazy EOT play and I made way too many mistakes in game 2 which could have theoretically made the game more competitive (though I think I was going to lose regardless - RBW drew all the cards it needs to be very hard to beat).
EDIT: I think Form sets life at the beginning of the end step. Which, if I understand it, would have passed once the sacrifice triggers off Sneak Attack resolved. Meaning RWU would not have been at 5 life since that effect would not have happened that turn. Based on that, I think RWU would have won game 1. RBW was tapped and without an untap step due to Yosei dying. There was no way to deal 5 damage (Trike was only 3). And RWU had the game won on untap between 5 damage from Form and a crater hellion in hand for sneak. So match is 1-1. I'll play a deciding game 3 tomorrow.
Game 3: Coffee break Magic... ah the memories. UWR opens with Desperate Ravings, discard garbage draw into lands - I do like this card a lot. RBW, Firestorm discard Firemane Angel to gain some life should the game go long. UWR plays As Foretold. RBW has Vindicate in hand but I opt to hold it this time and pass. Next turn I play Abyssal Persecutor to start serious beats. UWR has no answer for that immediately and eats 6 to the face, but does draw into Wrath of God the next turn. Sick burn though as RBW casts Miraculous Recovery EOT to bring persecutor back. This proves too much to deal with now that's it's a 7/7. UWR had Crater Hellion and Wildfire in hand with Burst Lightning. 6 damage it could answer but not 7. Angel of Invention buys a turns as a suicide blocker. RBW still holding that Vindicate, swings for lethal the following turn and then offs Persecutor. Had I played Vindicate earlier on anything, UWR may have had a chance to come back. As Foretold got up to 4 counters. At 6, it could have played two 6 mana spells and maybe had some options. But it was not meant to be. RBW wins the match.
So end result was still the same. RBW is the victor. Abyssal Persecutor is a really powerful card. Either you can remove it or you just die to it. The drawback on it is very easily mitigated. You can often kill it yourself and even if you can't, your opponent generally cannot allow you to beat them to death with it and hope you can't off persecutor. So your opponent usually kills it for you after taking a lot of damage from it. As Foretold is slow. I can see it working in longer games but my list might be too fast for this to really be a thing here.
RWU Wildfire vs Naya Zoo
Unhappy with the RWU deck so I want to keep hammering it and see what other changes are needed. As Foretold disappointed. It might work in Simic as a T2 drop - a bit like an aether vial. For now, it comes out. Replacing it with Complicate for now but that slot is flexible and might change as I tweak the list.
So this should be a good matchup. RWU has all the tools it needs to wreck aggro. Naya is pretty fast though so if it gets a good start it will win is my feeling.
Game 1: RWU starts with tapped land into a mountain holding Desperate Ravings and Burst Lightning. Naya slow start with Raging Ravine into Fauna Shaman which dies to the burst lighting. RWU follows with Monastery Mentor, Zoo top decks lightning Helix and mentor dies. Ravings discard Wrath of God (ugh… of all cards). Zoo with Call of the Herd. RWU Basalt Monolith with Form of the Dragon in hand. Just needs another mountain. Naya, Bloodbraid Elf flipping Basking Rootwalla. Beats are officially on now. RWU desperate for that mountain cycles and draw into nothing. Naya goes all out dropping an army of dudes. Lethal on the next turn. RWU rips the mountain and drops Form of the Dragon! Wow, that was pretty lucky. I was about to be really upset with myself for that ravings play knowing full well how critical the wrath was. Naya completely screwed now though. Kor Skyfisher not quite getting there. Skyfisher dies next turn and now Naya is that much farther away. Feldon of the Third Path online for RWU. Evoked Mulldrifter into Feldon activation make a Mulldrifter token - draw 4 bash for 2 (damn that felt good). Naya stuck on 5 land so can’t deal with Feldon using Masticore. Yosei the next turn to completely seal it. Naya had some outs technically - either enough burn or a disenchant, so it was closer than it appears.
Game 2: Naya keeps a slow hand but has Wasteland and Qasali Pridemage so I don’t mull. RWU with a good hand goes land Chromatic Star, land Boros Signet, Desperate Ravings discard mountain, play Izzet Boilerworks. Naya bounces forest to play Skyfisher T2 into Pridemage T3, swing for 3. Wastland on Boilerworks follows (ouch). Flametongue Kavu for RWU takes care of Qasai Pridemage but Naya follows with Knight of the Reliquary. I’ve never like KotR much but in this deck it’s pretty good. Three lands in the GY already for Naya between wasteland and two fetches, so knight is a real problem. Zuran Orb comes down and now KotR is nigh unkillable with burn. Meanwhile, RWU Sneak Attack then into Basalt Monolith, sac chromatic star, drop in Yosei, the morning star and Crater Hellion, swing for 11. Knight lives but the rest of the board is annihilated and Yosei death trigger taps down Naya (man, Yosei is so sweet). RWU out of threats digs and finds Mulldrifter and Feldon. So RWU at 4 life and Naya on 1 but they’ve got Zuran Orb and 4 lands (so 9 life technically). I’ve only got 2 red. I can drop in Feldon and Mulldrifter but that doesn’t do it. I don’t have enough for Feldon’s ability, so can’t drop Feldon and use his ability for Yosei. I wait and pass the turn. Naya draws into Bloodbraid Elf but bricks on the flip (Path to Exile and I have no creatures). Naya swings for lethal anyway. RWU can take a hit off the Elf and be at 1 but if Naya is holding a burn spell, RWU loses (they aren’t). I can drop both Feldon and Mulldrifter and double block taking nothing staying out of burn range probably, but if I don’t draw into another threat I lose. RWU chooses to just chump with drifter, ends up drawing into another mountain for Form of the Dragon. Sneak in Feldon, make a Yosei token bash. Naya sacs lands to Orb to live but is tapped for a turn with no mana now. Form comes down, Naya with literally no outs. That's game.
RWU Wildfire wins 2-0!
Finally got a solid win in with this deck, though both games were really close. Yosei, the morning star with Feldon of the Third Path is pretty disgusting and it works really well with Sneak attack in particular. I know this is supposed to be a wildfire deck, but that combo has been clutch as fuck and the best thing going in this deck so far. On a side note, I drew Weathered Wayfarer in both games and it felt utterly worthless in this deck. Why is this card in my cube again? I think I need to swap that for something else. Sunlance maybe? Not sure what else to run honestly. I really don't like white as a color and I feel I've reached just to get 54 white cards in my cube.
Unhappy with the RWU deck so I want to keep hammering it and see what other changes are needed. As Foretold disappointed. It might work in Simic as a T2 drop - a bit like an aether vial. For now, it comes out. Replacing it with Complicate for now but that slot is flexible and might change as I tweak the list.
So this should be a good matchup. RWU has all the tools it needs to wreck aggro. Naya is pretty fast though so if it gets a good start it will win is my feeling.
Game 1: RWU starts with tapped land into a mountain holding Desperate Ravings and Burst Lightning. Naya slow start with Raging Ravine into Fauna Shaman which dies to the burst lighting. RWU follows with Monastery Mentor, Zoo top decks lightning Helix and mentor dies. Ravings discard Wrath of God (ugh… of all cards). Zoo with Call of the Herd. RWU Basalt Monolith with Form of the Dragon in hand. Just needs another mountain. Naya, Bloodbraid Elf flipping Basking Rootwalla. Beats are officially on now. RWU desperate for that mountain cycles and draw into nothing. Naya goes all out dropping an army of dudes. Lethal on the next turn. RWU rips the mountain and drops Form of the Dragon! Wow, that was pretty lucky. I was about to be really upset with myself for that ravings play knowing full well how critical the wrath was. Naya completely screwed now though. Kor Skyfisher not quite getting there. Skyfisher dies next turn and now Naya is that much farther away. Feldon of the Third Path online for RWU. Evoked Mulldrifter into Feldon activation make a Mulldrifter token - draw 4 bash for 2 (damn that felt good). Naya stuck on 5 land so can’t deal with Feldon using Masticore. Yosei the next turn to completely seal it. Naya had some outs technically - either enough burn or a disenchant, so it was closer than it appears.
Game 2: Naya keeps a slow hand but has Wasteland and Qasali Pridemage so I don’t mull. RWU with a good hand goes land Chromatic Star, land Boros Signet, Desperate Ravings discard mountain, play Izzet Boilerworks. Naya bounces forest to play Skyfisher T2 into Pridemage T3, swing for 3. Wastland on Boilerworks follows (ouch). Flametongue Kavu for RWU takes care of Qasai Pridemage but Naya follows with Knight of the Reliquary. I’ve never like KotR much but in this deck it’s pretty good. Three lands in the GY already for Naya between wasteland and two fetches, so knight is a real problem. Zuran Orb comes down and now KotR is nigh unkillable with burn. Meanwhile, RWU Sneak Attack then into Basalt Monolith, sac chromatic star, drop in Yosei, the morning star and Crater Hellion, swing for 11. Knight lives but the rest of the board is annihilated and Yosei death trigger taps down Naya (man, Yosei is so sweet). RWU out of threats digs and finds Mulldrifter and Feldon. So RWU at 4 life and Naya on 1 but they’ve got Zuran Orb and 4 lands (so 9 life technically). I’ve only got 2 red. I can drop in Feldon and Mulldrifter but that doesn’t do it. I don’t have enough for Feldon’s ability, so can’t drop Feldon and use his ability for Yosei. I wait and pass the turn. Naya draws into Bloodbraid Elf but bricks on the flip (Path to Exile and I have no creatures). Naya swings for lethal anyway. RWU can take a hit off the Elf and be at 1 but if Naya is holding a burn spell, RWU loses (they aren’t). I can drop both Feldon and Mulldrifter and double block taking nothing staying out of burn range probably, but if I don’t draw into another threat I lose. RWU chooses to just chump with drifter, ends up drawing into another mountain for Form of the Dragon. Sneak in Feldon, make a Yosei token bash. Naya sacs lands to Orb to live but is tapped for a turn with no mana now. Form comes down, Naya with literally no outs. That's game.
RWU Wildfire wins 2-0!
Finally got a solid win in with this deck, though both games were really close. Yosei, the morning star with Feldon of the Third Path is pretty disgusting and it works really well with Sneak attack in particular. I know this is supposed to be a wildfire deck, but that combo has been clutch as fuck and the best thing going in this deck so far. On a side note, I drew Weathered Wayfarer in both games and it felt utterly worthless in this deck. Why is this card in my cube again? I think I need to swap that for something else. Sunlance maybe? Not sure what else to run honestly. I really don't like white as a color and I feel I've reached just to get 54 white cards in my cube.
RWU Wildfire vs WW
RWU did well in the last matchup, let’s see how it handles White Weanie. Two more swaps. Complicate out for Keiga, the Tide Star. Sneak/Feldon/Kamigawa Dragon seems to be what this deck wants so let’s give it more of that. Weathered Wayfarer out for Condemn. Enlightened Tutor comes back (that’s the actual cube swap), but I’m putting that in the Rock deck. It has more uses there now that I have two enchantment creatures (Eidolon of Blossoms and Doomwake Giant). I still don’t like Enlightened Tutor but I don’t really feel like running Sunlance (though I may end up doing that).
Game 1: UWR on the play. UWR, land, land, signet. WW keeps a land heavy hand. T1 bonesplitter, T2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Seems good but UWR, Flametongue Kavu is the perfect answer. WW keeps drawing lands, drops a sword of fire and ice, go. UWR, Swing with Flametongue. WW kills it with Harm’s Way (really cool card). It’s not actually that great though because UWR then plays Feldon of the Third Path. Misplay by me as I top deck Lodestone Golem and slam it right into Feldon. Feldon makes a copy of Flametongue and kills Lodestone next turn (doh). Damn, that was sloppy. WW more lands, Crusade in play now. When they finally draw another creature, it’s going to be seriously bad ass. WW channeling pants archetype right now. UWR has Form of the Dragon but not the third mountain. Tries to dig for it. Cycle Miscalculation into Fire // Ice. Ice something (whatever), draw into not a mountain… sigh. WW still drawing lands too. UWR plays Keiga, the Tide Star. WW finally gets a creature and it’s Banisher Priest (perfect). Banisher priest loaded up with axe and sword with crusade is straight up terrifying (7/5 pro blue/red). UWR top decks… wrath of God. This game has had outrageous top decks, good lord. Keiga back in play. WW pulls Soltari Monk, it’s now a terrifying 7/5 shadow pro blue/red/black creature. Man oh man. Finally UWR draws the third mountain though. Form comes down. WW does not draw an answer and dies to form and Keiga the next turn. Yeah, form of the dragon is quite good.
Game 2: WW keeps a 2 lander with just a ton of goodness. T1 Mother of Runes, into Stoneforge Mystic (fetch Sword of Fire and Ice). UWR, tapped land , T2 wall of omens. WW stuck on two lands, so tap stoneforge to get sword into play. Mother stays active to prevent targeted removal. UWR has fire//ice but it’s not doing much. Temple of Triumph, scry. No blue source, otherwise I would ice. WW draws a third plain, equip sword on mystic, mother bestows pro-white and swing to deal 5 damage and draw a card. Mana Tithe mana up. UWR has a lot of choices. I choose to fire mother and put Izzet Boilerworks into play. WW Griffon Guide and now UWR is really in trouble. 7 more damage and draw into Silverblade Paladin. Oh boy. UWR Sneak Attack with Keiga in hand, but that’s totally the wrong dragon for this fight. I sneak in Academy Rector instead. This deck only has Form of the Dragon as a target though, and that’s not going to get it done against a 5/6 flying creature (this deck properly built should have O-ring or something similar for utility plays like this - my bad). WW silverblade, soulbond, swing and that’s the game right there. Sword of Fire and Ice is sort of really good against UWR control.
That O-ring thing is bothering me. I’m going to swap Forsake the Worldly from this deck with O-ring in the RBW deck. Should be OK I think? It takes away one way to deal with Abyssal Persecutor, but we’ll see if that becomes a problem when I test that deck more. My experience is your opponent kills persecutor most of the time for you because it’s suicide to go to negative life and assume they can’t remove it. I’ve never seen anyone lose a game to persecutor’s drawback.
Game 3: Pretty sweet early plays in this one. UWR opens with island, chromatic star, then Arid Mesa holding fire // ice. WW, no T1 play, but T2 soltari priest. So much for fire. UWR temple of Triumph, scrys garbage and passes. During upkeep, ice plain. WW, swing with priest, UWR sac chromatic star into Condemn. Feels so good. WW soltari monk, go. UWR, Sneak Attack, go. WW Silverblade Paladin, attack for 4 with monk. UWR with Keiga, the Tide Star, Yosei, the Morning Star, and Burst Lightning in hand. Yowser. This is a beating. Drop in two dragons, swing for 10. Burst lightning the monk. When Yosei dies, tap down WW. When Keiga dies, steal Silverblade. Yes please. Maybe I should have just used Keiga and saved Yosei to soulbond next turn? Not sure. WW plains, Martyr of Sands. That could matter? Let’s see. UWR out of gas now, swings with a limp Silverblade. WW, swing sac Martyr for 9 life, play crusade. Pass with Unexpectedly Absent up. UWR, Angel of Invention, WW unexpectedly absent on Silverblade (put on top of WW library - neato). WW draw and plays silverblade. UWR draws more land. Uh oh. Angel attacks for 4 gain 4 life. WW sword of fire and ice, equip, swing for 5+2 draw a card. UWR not winning this battle at all, maybe I should have chumped? UWR cycle forgotten cave into cycle miscalculation. Finds Form of the Dragon but can’t play it yet, swing with Angel going from 12 life to 16, WW now at 10. WW, bonesplitter, equip, play Soldier of the Pantheon soulbond paladin. Swing for 14. Yikes. Going to have to chump that or die to sword trigger. Angel of Invention is obliterated. UWR drops Form of the dragon. WW now with two turns to find an answer. Glorious Anthem followed by a land. Not going to do it, but they have Harm’s way. Oh, that buys a turn I guess. WW flips… Recruiter of the Guard. OK, maybe? Search for… nothing useful. And that's game.
UWR wins 2-1!
Very competitive match. Form of the Dragon and Sword of Fire and Ice the all-stars of this matchup.
RWU did well in the last matchup, let’s see how it handles White Weanie. Two more swaps. Complicate out for Keiga, the Tide Star. Sneak/Feldon/Kamigawa Dragon seems to be what this deck wants so let’s give it more of that. Weathered Wayfarer out for Condemn. Enlightened Tutor comes back (that’s the actual cube swap), but I’m putting that in the Rock deck. It has more uses there now that I have two enchantment creatures (Eidolon of Blossoms and Doomwake Giant). I still don’t like Enlightened Tutor but I don’t really feel like running Sunlance (though I may end up doing that).
Game 1: UWR on the play. UWR, land, land, signet. WW keeps a land heavy hand. T1 bonesplitter, T2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Seems good but UWR, Flametongue Kavu is the perfect answer. WW keeps drawing lands, drops a sword of fire and ice, go. UWR, Swing with Flametongue. WW kills it with Harm’s Way (really cool card). It’s not actually that great though because UWR then plays Feldon of the Third Path. Misplay by me as I top deck Lodestone Golem and slam it right into Feldon. Feldon makes a copy of Flametongue and kills Lodestone next turn (doh). Damn, that was sloppy. WW more lands, Crusade in play now. When they finally draw another creature, it’s going to be seriously bad ass. WW channeling pants archetype right now. UWR has Form of the Dragon but not the third mountain. Tries to dig for it. Cycle Miscalculation into Fire // Ice. Ice something (whatever), draw into not a mountain… sigh. WW still drawing lands too. UWR plays Keiga, the Tide Star. WW finally gets a creature and it’s Banisher Priest (perfect). Banisher priest loaded up with axe and sword with crusade is straight up terrifying (7/5 pro blue/red). UWR top decks… wrath of God. This game has had outrageous top decks, good lord. Keiga back in play. WW pulls Soltari Monk, it’s now a terrifying 7/5 shadow pro blue/red/black creature. Man oh man. Finally UWR draws the third mountain though. Form comes down. WW does not draw an answer and dies to form and Keiga the next turn. Yeah, form of the dragon is quite good.
Game 2: WW keeps a 2 lander with just a ton of goodness. T1 Mother of Runes, into Stoneforge Mystic (fetch Sword of Fire and Ice). UWR, tapped land , T2 wall of omens. WW stuck on two lands, so tap stoneforge to get sword into play. Mother stays active to prevent targeted removal. UWR has fire//ice but it’s not doing much. Temple of Triumph, scry. No blue source, otherwise I would ice. WW draws a third plain, equip sword on mystic, mother bestows pro-white and swing to deal 5 damage and draw a card. Mana Tithe mana up. UWR has a lot of choices. I choose to fire mother and put Izzet Boilerworks into play. WW Griffon Guide and now UWR is really in trouble. 7 more damage and draw into Silverblade Paladin. Oh boy. UWR Sneak Attack with Keiga in hand, but that’s totally the wrong dragon for this fight. I sneak in Academy Rector instead. This deck only has Form of the Dragon as a target though, and that’s not going to get it done against a 5/6 flying creature (this deck properly built should have O-ring or something similar for utility plays like this - my bad). WW silverblade, soulbond, swing and that’s the game right there. Sword of Fire and Ice is sort of really good against UWR control.
That O-ring thing is bothering me. I’m going to swap Forsake the Worldly from this deck with O-ring in the RBW deck. Should be OK I think? It takes away one way to deal with Abyssal Persecutor, but we’ll see if that becomes a problem when I test that deck more. My experience is your opponent kills persecutor most of the time for you because it’s suicide to go to negative life and assume they can’t remove it. I’ve never seen anyone lose a game to persecutor’s drawback.
Game 3: Pretty sweet early plays in this one. UWR opens with island, chromatic star, then Arid Mesa holding fire // ice. WW, no T1 play, but T2 soltari priest. So much for fire. UWR temple of Triumph, scrys garbage and passes. During upkeep, ice plain. WW, swing with priest, UWR sac chromatic star into Condemn. Feels so good. WW soltari monk, go. UWR, Sneak Attack, go. WW Silverblade Paladin, attack for 4 with monk. UWR with Keiga, the Tide Star, Yosei, the Morning Star, and Burst Lightning in hand. Yowser. This is a beating. Drop in two dragons, swing for 10. Burst lightning the monk. When Yosei dies, tap down WW. When Keiga dies, steal Silverblade. Yes please. Maybe I should have just used Keiga and saved Yosei to soulbond next turn? Not sure. WW plains, Martyr of Sands. That could matter? Let’s see. UWR out of gas now, swings with a limp Silverblade. WW, swing sac Martyr for 9 life, play crusade. Pass with Unexpectedly Absent up. UWR, Angel of Invention, WW unexpectedly absent on Silverblade (put on top of WW library - neato). WW draw and plays silverblade. UWR draws more land. Uh oh. Angel attacks for 4 gain 4 life. WW sword of fire and ice, equip, swing for 5+2 draw a card. UWR not winning this battle at all, maybe I should have chumped? UWR cycle forgotten cave into cycle miscalculation. Finds Form of the Dragon but can’t play it yet, swing with Angel going from 12 life to 16, WW now at 10. WW, bonesplitter, equip, play Soldier of the Pantheon soulbond paladin. Swing for 14. Yikes. Going to have to chump that or die to sword trigger. Angel of Invention is obliterated. UWR drops Form of the dragon. WW now with two turns to find an answer. Glorious Anthem followed by a land. Not going to do it, but they have Harm’s way. Oh, that buys a turn I guess. WW flips… Recruiter of the Guard. OK, maybe? Search for… nothing useful. And that's game.
UWR wins 2-1!
Very competitive match. Form of the Dragon and Sword of Fire and Ice the all-stars of this matchup.
UB Pyschatog Control vs Mono Black
Game 1: UB on the play, T1 Duress. I should take Necropotence but I’m very worried about Smokestack. Wrong choice as you’ll see shortly. BB rips Hymn to Tourach off the top. T1 carrion feeder. UB Dark Confidant. BB hymn, make UB discard some land. Not a big deal. Confidant flip land, play land, go. UB kept a land heavy hand and I’m drawing more lands. Not a promising start. T3 Necro by BB, draw 4 cards. From there, things spin out of control as Lake of the dead is among the newly drawn cards. UB draws cool stuff but it’s all slow and useless right now. Future Sight and Sensei’s Diving Top. Get back to me on T7. BB Mesmeric Fiend, finds no counter, steals Tombstalker - all systems go. Lake, swamp sac, play a bunch of stuff, draw more cards off Necro. UB, spins top and finds nothing. Morphling to try and get something on the board but that’s just not getting it done here. BB more swamp sacrifice drops Gray Merchant of Asphodel for 9 point drain, draws more cards with Necro because it hasn't done enough work yet. This is an utter beating. UB, spins top finding… Mana Leak. LOL, yeah that’s game. That shuffle was bogus, I swear I drew 10 lands. UB gets eviscerated in game one. I’m an idiot for not taking Necro with the duress though. Necropotence is just a silly card. Draw 10 for BBB simply isn’t reasonable and it made what may have been a close game, completely not close at all. Didn't help that UB had zero pressure, so BB was paying life with reckless abandon.
Game 2: Goes so long, I don’t think I can accurately summarize it. First half of the game is a bit like the last one. So let’s skip ahead. BB with a board lead, UB in a tight spot with weak answers and plays (Tog looking like utter garbage here FWIW) - blah blah. Game does get extended this time. Mind stone helps to ramp UB. Mana Leak on Geralf’s Messenger avoids a really bad situation. All helps to slow down the BB assault. Lake of the Dead though, recurring dudes, Smokestack into Mesmeric fiend take Sower of Temptation. Not looking so hot as things march on. UB fights back with Future Sight though which plays a million cards off the top of the library, keeping up with 2 soot smokestack quite admirably (though long term this is a losing battle). Future Sight is damn good late game though. I used evolving wilds to shuffle some BS off the top and got an extra play out of Future Sight that way. Only draw back with the Future Sight frenzy is I’m burning through my 40 card deck like it’s tinder. This sequence was really cool though, truth be told. Upheaval happens finally and UB follows up swamp, swamp, Tombstalker. BB still with a lot of life ignores that for now and just keeps playing cheap stuff into Necropotence. BB Lake of the Dead into Death Cloud for 2 leaving just Lake in play. UB loses all momentum with that sequence and winds up holding just island and Sower of Temptation. BB then top decks Hymn. Eh gads. BB pays more life with Necro, draws more cards. UB now down to 3 cards in library, nothing in hand with no win condition left in their library even. Hopelessly beaten by Lake + Necro. BB and UB both on low single digit life at this point but it’s locked now. Gary comes down for the mercy kill.
BB wins 2-0!
Man. This Mono Black deck is broken. The UB deck is a little slow maybe, but it’s certainly not bad. Maybe one of the other agro decks can keep the Necro thing more honest? I don’t know. That was really a solid shellacking though. Necro is just so gross. It's interesting too, even if I were running Consecrated Sphinx, Grave Titan I'm not sure it would make a difference here. Maybe Massacre Wurm? Honestly, unless you can deal with Lake + Necro, I don't see how you beat that with anything I'm running in this cube. Storm I guess? Well, we'll see I suppose.
Also worth mentioning since it pertains to recent discussions in the forum, Mesmeric Fiend doing all kinds of work in this matchup. BB drew it each game and it was a factor pre and post upheaval. It’s fragile but a lot of times it lives despite this because of various factors. You can take the removal card or force them to use the card you want them to. In game 2, fiend took Sower one time and then after upheaval hit, fiend came back and took innocent blood (stalling an answer from UB). Card is a lot better than people think. Especially relevant with upheaval since it got replayed a second time doing more work again.
Game 1: UB on the play, T1 Duress. I should take Necropotence but I’m very worried about Smokestack. Wrong choice as you’ll see shortly. BB rips Hymn to Tourach off the top. T1 carrion feeder. UB Dark Confidant. BB hymn, make UB discard some land. Not a big deal. Confidant flip land, play land, go. UB kept a land heavy hand and I’m drawing more lands. Not a promising start. T3 Necro by BB, draw 4 cards. From there, things spin out of control as Lake of the dead is among the newly drawn cards. UB draws cool stuff but it’s all slow and useless right now. Future Sight and Sensei’s Diving Top. Get back to me on T7. BB Mesmeric Fiend, finds no counter, steals Tombstalker - all systems go. Lake, swamp sac, play a bunch of stuff, draw more cards off Necro. UB, spins top and finds nothing. Morphling to try and get something on the board but that’s just not getting it done here. BB more swamp sacrifice drops Gray Merchant of Asphodel for 9 point drain, draws more cards with Necro because it hasn't done enough work yet. This is an utter beating. UB, spins top finding… Mana Leak. LOL, yeah that’s game. That shuffle was bogus, I swear I drew 10 lands. UB gets eviscerated in game one. I’m an idiot for not taking Necro with the duress though. Necropotence is just a silly card. Draw 10 for BBB simply isn’t reasonable and it made what may have been a close game, completely not close at all. Didn't help that UB had zero pressure, so BB was paying life with reckless abandon.
Game 2: Goes so long, I don’t think I can accurately summarize it. First half of the game is a bit like the last one. So let’s skip ahead. BB with a board lead, UB in a tight spot with weak answers and plays (Tog looking like utter garbage here FWIW) - blah blah. Game does get extended this time. Mind stone helps to ramp UB. Mana Leak on Geralf’s Messenger avoids a really bad situation. All helps to slow down the BB assault. Lake of the Dead though, recurring dudes, Smokestack into Mesmeric fiend take Sower of Temptation. Not looking so hot as things march on. UB fights back with Future Sight though which plays a million cards off the top of the library, keeping up with 2 soot smokestack quite admirably (though long term this is a losing battle). Future Sight is damn good late game though. I used evolving wilds to shuffle some BS off the top and got an extra play out of Future Sight that way. Only draw back with the Future Sight frenzy is I’m burning through my 40 card deck like it’s tinder. This sequence was really cool though, truth be told. Upheaval happens finally and UB follows up swamp, swamp, Tombstalker. BB still with a lot of life ignores that for now and just keeps playing cheap stuff into Necropotence. BB Lake of the Dead into Death Cloud for 2 leaving just Lake in play. UB loses all momentum with that sequence and winds up holding just island and Sower of Temptation. BB then top decks Hymn. Eh gads. BB pays more life with Necro, draws more cards. UB now down to 3 cards in library, nothing in hand with no win condition left in their library even. Hopelessly beaten by Lake + Necro. BB and UB both on low single digit life at this point but it’s locked now. Gary comes down for the mercy kill.
BB wins 2-0!
Man. This Mono Black deck is broken. The UB deck is a little slow maybe, but it’s certainly not bad. Maybe one of the other agro decks can keep the Necro thing more honest? I don’t know. That was really a solid shellacking though. Necro is just so gross. It's interesting too, even if I were running Consecrated Sphinx, Grave Titan I'm not sure it would make a difference here. Maybe Massacre Wurm? Honestly, unless you can deal with Lake + Necro, I don't see how you beat that with anything I'm running in this cube. Storm I guess? Well, we'll see I suppose.
Also worth mentioning since it pertains to recent discussions in the forum, Mesmeric Fiend doing all kinds of work in this matchup. BB drew it each game and it was a factor pre and post upheaval. It’s fragile but a lot of times it lives despite this because of various factors. You can take the removal card or force them to use the card you want them to. In game 2, fiend took Sower one time and then after upheaval hit, fiend came back and took innocent blood (stalling an answer from UB). Card is a lot better than people think. Especially relevant with upheaval since it got replayed a second time doing more work again.
Goblins vs BU Psychatog Control
Pretty disappointed that UB got crushed last match. This might be an equally bad matchup but let’s see what happens…
Game 1: Mono red with a good start. Cursed Scroll into Lightning Mauler. UB duress, take Fireblast. T2 I evolving wilds but maybe I should have used my other land and cycled. T3 Psychatog. Mono Red with Phyrexian Revoker naming tog. Punked. Revoker is sweet. RR, soulbond and swing with both. Probably should have traded but I’m thinking I can stabilize. UB Mystical tutor for Toxic Deluge and deluge for 1. RR with Avalanche riders as follow-up. ouch. UB only has 3 mana available with just a bicycle dual to put into play tapped. I’m pretty certain now I sequenced this badly as I should have played that earlier (or cycled it). Maybe there was no better way. Regardless, I needed 4 mana on this turn and didn’t have it. RR, rider to the yard and follows with Goblin Lackey and Goblin Warchief. Swing. Tog blocks and kills Lackey (I’m playing assuming it’s the better choice but RR had no gobos in hand). UB Befoul the warchief but life low at this point and it’s looking bleak. RR with Sulfuric Vortex. That’s going to end it. UB has 3 turns (actually less). Tombstalker, swing with Tog discard/gy exile and do as much as possible. Try and race but that’s just not going to happen. RR with firebolt, activate scroll. UB dies on upkeep from vortex. Pretty efficient beat down all told. Mono red goblins is a good deck. Mental note to self, RR versus the Necro deck - I should do that one next.
Game 2: Mono red with another good start. T1 firebolt to face, T2 Mogg War Marshal. UB evolving wilds for island into mind stone. RR Goblin Warchief which meets a shriekmaw. UB holds mana leak for a Blistering Firecat. Mystical Tutor for Toxic Deluge. RR Goblin Recruiter to setup 5 more goblins. Man, this is just too much to deal with. UB deluge to clear the board, mystical tutor for befoul. Answers running out. RR draws ringleader (set on top), play Goblin Ringleader, draw Goblin Lackey, Goblin Piledriver, Goblin Chieftain, Siege-Gang Commander. A perfectly setup recruiter/ringleader is the best CA combo in all of aggro IMO. UB needed another counter. I guess I could have gotten force of will? Maybe would have been a better solution (I think I had future sight to pitch to it too). OK, misplay I guess. Ringleader really needed to be countered to have any chance here. UB Guilded lotus but that’s just all kinds of futile now. I could kill piledriver with befoul but it’s not going to matter. My only hope is to draw into upheaval (which is another card I maybe should have tutored for - Befoul is not getting it done). RR swings and plays Siege-Gang Commander. UB super dead next turn unless they draw… upheaval? Doesn’t happen. Sacrifice mind stone and draw… upheaval? Yes! Stroke of luck. Still, it’s just not good enough. I can play it but don’t have a follow-up because I don’t have enough mana floating. So play island and go. RR has the perfect answer, mountain, lackey go. I cannot kill it, so RR with siege-gang off lackey trigger and UB dies shortly after.
Goblins wins 2-0!
Another thrashing for UB. I didn’t play optimally but really neither game was close. This is a bad matchup but it’s also disappointing to see lopsided contests like this. I guess that’s something combo/powered cubes are stuck with though. And it’s worth noting that this UB deck is way easier to draft than the nut mono red goblin deck.
Pretty disappointed that UB got crushed last match. This might be an equally bad matchup but let’s see what happens…
Game 1: Mono red with a good start. Cursed Scroll into Lightning Mauler. UB duress, take Fireblast. T2 I evolving wilds but maybe I should have used my other land and cycled. T3 Psychatog. Mono Red with Phyrexian Revoker naming tog. Punked. Revoker is sweet. RR, soulbond and swing with both. Probably should have traded but I’m thinking I can stabilize. UB Mystical tutor for Toxic Deluge and deluge for 1. RR with Avalanche riders as follow-up. ouch. UB only has 3 mana available with just a bicycle dual to put into play tapped. I’m pretty certain now I sequenced this badly as I should have played that earlier (or cycled it). Maybe there was no better way. Regardless, I needed 4 mana on this turn and didn’t have it. RR, rider to the yard and follows with Goblin Lackey and Goblin Warchief. Swing. Tog blocks and kills Lackey (I’m playing assuming it’s the better choice but RR had no gobos in hand). UB Befoul the warchief but life low at this point and it’s looking bleak. RR with Sulfuric Vortex. That’s going to end it. UB has 3 turns (actually less). Tombstalker, swing with Tog discard/gy exile and do as much as possible. Try and race but that’s just not going to happen. RR with firebolt, activate scroll. UB dies on upkeep from vortex. Pretty efficient beat down all told. Mono red goblins is a good deck. Mental note to self, RR versus the Necro deck - I should do that one next.
Game 2: Mono red with another good start. T1 firebolt to face, T2 Mogg War Marshal. UB evolving wilds for island into mind stone. RR Goblin Warchief which meets a shriekmaw. UB holds mana leak for a Blistering Firecat. Mystical Tutor for Toxic Deluge. RR Goblin Recruiter to setup 5 more goblins. Man, this is just too much to deal with. UB deluge to clear the board, mystical tutor for befoul. Answers running out. RR draws ringleader (set on top), play Goblin Ringleader, draw Goblin Lackey, Goblin Piledriver, Goblin Chieftain, Siege-Gang Commander. A perfectly setup recruiter/ringleader is the best CA combo in all of aggro IMO. UB needed another counter. I guess I could have gotten force of will? Maybe would have been a better solution (I think I had future sight to pitch to it too). OK, misplay I guess. Ringleader really needed to be countered to have any chance here. UB Guilded lotus but that’s just all kinds of futile now. I could kill piledriver with befoul but it’s not going to matter. My only hope is to draw into upheaval (which is another card I maybe should have tutored for - Befoul is not getting it done). RR swings and plays Siege-Gang Commander. UB super dead next turn unless they draw… upheaval? Doesn’t happen. Sacrifice mind stone and draw… upheaval? Yes! Stroke of luck. Still, it’s just not good enough. I can play it but don’t have a follow-up because I don’t have enough mana floating. So play island and go. RR has the perfect answer, mountain, lackey go. I cannot kill it, so RR with siege-gang off lackey trigger and UB dies shortly after.
Goblins wins 2-0!
Another thrashing for UB. I didn’t play optimally but really neither game was close. This is a bad matchup but it’s also disappointing to see lopsided contests like this. I guess that’s something combo/powered cubes are stuck with though. And it’s worth noting that this UB deck is way easier to draft than the nut mono red goblin deck.
Mono Black vs Goblins!
Battle of the undefeated decks. Both have gone 3-0. Both with a game record of 6-2. Should be an interesting match. Games won’t drag out, that I’m pretty sure of. Each of these is quite aggressive, though Goblins are less about bleeding you slowly compared to mono black. Once they smell blood, you are dead quick. Well, on to game one...
Game 1: Red with the best possible start of mountain Goblin Guide. BB reveals swamp and draws it. BB swamp, carrion feeder. RR, lightning mauler, soulbond swing for 4. BB reveals smokestack. BB bloodsoaked champion, gravecrawler, attack with feeder for 1. RR swing for 4 more to take BB down to 10 with Fireblast and firebolt in hand. Looking good. One more turn? Guess not. BB smallpox, sacrifice crawler replay crawler, swing with feeder/champion. RR sacs goblin guide. Maybe should have fireblasted feeder in hindsight? Eh… Anyway, RR with skirk prospector. Too many lands in hand now and running out of gas. BB Lake of the Dead, sac swamp, sac crawler to feeder, replay crawler, play gray merchant of Asphodel for 5 point drain, swing. That was a huge swing. RR dies shortly after. The life gain on merchant in this matchup will be crucial to BB winning.
Game 2: This is a surprisingly sweet game. RR T1 Aether Vial, into T2 Lightning Mauler. BB with T1 cryptbreaker, T2 discard champion make a zombie. Aether Vial ticks up to 2. RR with Phyrexian Revoker in hand. OK, so here’s where I’m not sure what would actually occur. Locking down cryptbreaker is not a bad play - it shuts value-town down but at the same time this is a slow engine and there have to be better targets. Right? Right!!? I opt to hold at least into my opponent's turn since I can flash this in if, you know, nothing better shows up. BB with T3 necropotence (oh look, something MUCH better showed up), vial in revoker in response. This is just gross. You’d think the game was over right then and there, but not quite. RR goes ham with Goblin warchief off vial next turn into cost reduced goblin ringleader, revealing mogg war marshal and goblin recruiter. Yeesh. Even blind, ringleader is still really good in a heavy gobo deck. Swing with Ringleader and Mauler. BB trades the mauler for a zombie token. BB T4 Nevinyrral’s disk! They were lucky to have that in hand since no draw step and no necro draws - they were effectively locked out of the game. RR drops war marshall and recruiter lining up 4 more goblins (Goblin Recruiter is BUSTED it’s basically an infinite worldly tutor - just don’t land lock yourself by playing it too early). RR swings with everything except revoker for 9. BB blows disk during upkeep to reset the board and getting a draw step, play gravecrawler with just one card in hand. Not looking good. RR draws Siege-gang commander conveniently off the top. I mean, what are the odd? The end is nigh. BB swing crawler replay champion. All doing very little given the state of things. RR ignores because they draw Goblin Chieftain (wow, these top decks). Play and swing with siege-gang and crew for lethal. Brutal.
Glad this went three games and each deck got a chance to shine doing what it does well. RR definitely has a solid long game engine. It’s aggro but with a combo element to it. It’s actually stronger if it gets to the midgame I think. BB is all about bursty mana and resource denial plan. If it can’t do those things, it doesn’t have any real bite. This mono black deck is murderous to slow control decks as we’ve seen already. Gobos giving it a run for it’s money though. On to the rubber.
Game 3: BB with a nice hand, T1 crawler into T2 bitterblossom. RR equally impressive T1 with Goblin Guide (which revealed land every single time it swung - BB drew like 5 lands off this card). BB with Hypnotic Specter which eats a firebolt. Goblin Guide swinging away. Maybe I should be chumping with rogue tokens but thinking I want to get offense going so I’m not for now. RR ancient tomb which eats a befoul (swap from the UB deck I did last night - was nekrataal before). That was a stupid play by me since I had nothing to use the mana on and could have held tomb a turn. Bitterblossom eating BB’s life total here with no dividends. I know people rate this card highly, but without anthems or other synergy I don’t think blossom is all that great. BB mesmeric fiend steal Empty the Warrens. RR drawing nothing but lands is dragging the game out a bit here. Finally finds Goblin Chieftain and then Mogg War Marshal - marshal is good normally but with haste it’s really sweet. BB with just no offense at all starts chumping. Nevinyrral’s Disk, but it’s a turn too late as RR finds Blistering Firecat and swings for lethal. Mono black was on the defensive early and never recovered. Goblin Guide is unreasonably good for R. If any card gets cut, it's going to be that one. Mono black drew 5 lands off it and still lost the game to it.
Goblins win 2-1!
Well, one of them had to be a loser here. Gobos remain undefeated with a stunning 8-3 game record. All star of the gobo deck - Goblin Recruiter. Provided much needed inevitability in game 2. Even without the Goblin Ringleader combo, recruiter is stellar late game to just lineup gas on every draw step. It’s virtual card advantage at it’s absolute finest. There very few cards I'd rather draw late game in a goblin deck.
Battle of the undefeated decks. Both have gone 3-0. Both with a game record of 6-2. Should be an interesting match. Games won’t drag out, that I’m pretty sure of. Each of these is quite aggressive, though Goblins are less about bleeding you slowly compared to mono black. Once they smell blood, you are dead quick. Well, on to game one...
Game 1: Red with the best possible start of mountain Goblin Guide. BB reveals swamp and draws it. BB swamp, carrion feeder. RR, lightning mauler, soulbond swing for 4. BB reveals smokestack. BB bloodsoaked champion, gravecrawler, attack with feeder for 1. RR swing for 4 more to take BB down to 10 with Fireblast and firebolt in hand. Looking good. One more turn? Guess not. BB smallpox, sacrifice crawler replay crawler, swing with feeder/champion. RR sacs goblin guide. Maybe should have fireblasted feeder in hindsight? Eh… Anyway, RR with skirk prospector. Too many lands in hand now and running out of gas. BB Lake of the Dead, sac swamp, sac crawler to feeder, replay crawler, play gray merchant of Asphodel for 5 point drain, swing. That was a huge swing. RR dies shortly after. The life gain on merchant in this matchup will be crucial to BB winning.
Game 2: This is a surprisingly sweet game. RR T1 Aether Vial, into T2 Lightning Mauler. BB with T1 cryptbreaker, T2 discard champion make a zombie. Aether Vial ticks up to 2. RR with Phyrexian Revoker in hand. OK, so here’s where I’m not sure what would actually occur. Locking down cryptbreaker is not a bad play - it shuts value-town down but at the same time this is a slow engine and there have to be better targets. Right? Right!!? I opt to hold at least into my opponent's turn since I can flash this in if, you know, nothing better shows up. BB with T3 necropotence (oh look, something MUCH better showed up), vial in revoker in response. This is just gross. You’d think the game was over right then and there, but not quite. RR goes ham with Goblin warchief off vial next turn into cost reduced goblin ringleader, revealing mogg war marshal and goblin recruiter. Yeesh. Even blind, ringleader is still really good in a heavy gobo deck. Swing with Ringleader and Mauler. BB trades the mauler for a zombie token. BB T4 Nevinyrral’s disk! They were lucky to have that in hand since no draw step and no necro draws - they were effectively locked out of the game. RR drops war marshall and recruiter lining up 4 more goblins (Goblin Recruiter is BUSTED it’s basically an infinite worldly tutor - just don’t land lock yourself by playing it too early). RR swings with everything except revoker for 9. BB blows disk during upkeep to reset the board and getting a draw step, play gravecrawler with just one card in hand. Not looking good. RR draws Siege-gang commander conveniently off the top. I mean, what are the odd? The end is nigh. BB swing crawler replay champion. All doing very little given the state of things. RR ignores because they draw Goblin Chieftain (wow, these top decks). Play and swing with siege-gang and crew for lethal. Brutal.
Glad this went three games and each deck got a chance to shine doing what it does well. RR definitely has a solid long game engine. It’s aggro but with a combo element to it. It’s actually stronger if it gets to the midgame I think. BB is all about bursty mana and resource denial plan. If it can’t do those things, it doesn’t have any real bite. This mono black deck is murderous to slow control decks as we’ve seen already. Gobos giving it a run for it’s money though. On to the rubber.
Game 3: BB with a nice hand, T1 crawler into T2 bitterblossom. RR equally impressive T1 with Goblin Guide (which revealed land every single time it swung - BB drew like 5 lands off this card). BB with Hypnotic Specter which eats a firebolt. Goblin Guide swinging away. Maybe I should be chumping with rogue tokens but thinking I want to get offense going so I’m not for now. RR ancient tomb which eats a befoul (swap from the UB deck I did last night - was nekrataal before). That was a stupid play by me since I had nothing to use the mana on and could have held tomb a turn. Bitterblossom eating BB’s life total here with no dividends. I know people rate this card highly, but without anthems or other synergy I don’t think blossom is all that great. BB mesmeric fiend steal Empty the Warrens. RR drawing nothing but lands is dragging the game out a bit here. Finally finds Goblin Chieftain and then Mogg War Marshal - marshal is good normally but with haste it’s really sweet. BB with just no offense at all starts chumping. Nevinyrral’s Disk, but it’s a turn too late as RR finds Blistering Firecat and swings for lethal. Mono black was on the defensive early and never recovered. Goblin Guide is unreasonably good for R. If any card gets cut, it's going to be that one. Mono black drew 5 lands off it and still lost the game to it.
Goblins win 2-1!
Well, one of them had to be a loser here. Gobos remain undefeated with a stunning 8-3 game record. All star of the gobo deck - Goblin Recruiter. Provided much needed inevitability in game 2. Even without the Goblin Ringleader combo, recruiter is stellar late game to just lineup gas on every draw step. It’s virtual card advantage at it’s absolute finest. There very few cards I'd rather draw late game in a goblin deck.
UPDATE:
Been wrestling a bit with the aggro/control dynamic in this cube. Despite the slightly less focused nature of the control test decks, they are definitely doing poorly compared to their slicker aggro counterparts. And part of this is due to how much power creep I've allowed at lower CMC creature slots versus higher ones. Morphing compares very poorly to Bloodsoaked Champion - for their respective decks - on power level.
What to do?
I think it comes down to upgrading control finishers or downgrading aggro pieces. I'm going to go with option "B". And my reasoning boils down to three specific things:
OUT >> IN
Bloodsoaked Champion >> Sarcomancy
Goblin Guide >> Mogg Fanatic
Soldier of the Pantheon >> Icatian Javelineers
Champion is the best generic 2 power 1 drop in the cube. It's super simple to recur, in a way that seems synergistic but really isn't. Have dudes swinging? It recurs. It's the Restoration Angel of blink. Card is just really good and is easy mode synergy. Crawler has higher upside since it's cheaper to recur but having a zombie is a design constraint (and a real one in most cubes). It signals the recur theme and plays very nice with black as a color. That's why crawler survives this cut. Sarcomancy is a card I like design wise. It plays into the zombie theme and it's an extra permanent for smokestack.
Guide is just... too good. Again, goes in everything that turns dudes sideways. And the "drawback" is bogus. Maybe there are certain matches where giving your opponent land hurts enough to offset this silly card, but I'm skeptical. Mogg Fanatic I miss because sac'ing it to deal with troublesome T1 dudes (birds, mother, etc) is something really useful. It still turns sideways. It's still a goblin. It's way worse as an aggressive beater, but that's the point.
Soldier could probably stay but the protection can randomly be really powerful and it's just another 2 power 1 drop I don't want feeding the easy-mode beatdown deck. Javalineers is not very good. It's slow and it hits like a limp noodle. Mogg Fanatic this is not (utility wise). Might swap this for something else later if it's just too janky. I like that it sticks around after pinging something though. White has crap CA and this actually is that sometimes.
Naya is being left untouched for now. Here's basically why... It requires a lot of focus on powerful fixing (mainly lands with basic land types). It's hard to draft. Kind Ape, Wild Nacatyl, even Steppe Lynx. Just aren't good without fetches to get the lands you need. There are ton of key cards you have to get in the draft. At a minimum, this deck needs good sequencing decisions to be solid. Something that can't be said for most other 2 power 1 drop aggro lists. The Naya deck is also just 1-1, including a trouncing by the RWU sneak-a-dragon deck.
Been wrestling a bit with the aggro/control dynamic in this cube. Despite the slightly less focused nature of the control test decks, they are definitely doing poorly compared to their slicker aggro counterparts. And part of this is due to how much power creep I've allowed at lower CMC creature slots versus higher ones. Morphing compares very poorly to Bloodsoaked Champion - for their respective decks - on power level.
What to do?
I think it comes down to upgrading control finishers or downgrading aggro pieces. I'm going to go with option "B". And my reasoning boils down to three specific things:
- This cube design is about lower powered creatures and high powered spells. I start putting Consecrated Sphinx's in here and I might as well just copy a power list, swap some retro cards and call it a day.
- Personal preference. I just dislike traditional all-in aggro. It's easy to draft, even easier to play, and it cuts down on so much of the game complexity. I know some people love it, but I just hated personally. The best test matches I've played were the ones that went at least to the mid game. Aggression (or pressure) is an important element to the game - I think decks that do this are mandatory. But this isn't all or nothing. You can adjust how quick this comes online. At the risk of misrepresenting Grillo's position, I think he's pushed his cubes towards T2 aggro for loosely similar reasons. He wants high decision density and you sort of need to get some mana on the board for that to really happen.
- Pushing aggro to be more efficient and control to be more overbearing int the late game feeds this "Roshambo" model I dislike so much. Bad matchups start looking like pointless affairs where the games are over before they start because aggro > control or whatever the situation is. I've seen a lot of Magic games go that way. This gets a whole lot more transparent when you play both sides of the table too. You see whose likely to win before the first card is even played. The trick I feel to softening both ends is preventing all decks from just being a midrange melting pot with no identity. This just kills variety and actually obsoletes strategies all together and tends to make drafts very shallow. At least at the power level I'm running here. Again, you go much lower power and things start to open up design wise. But I don't want to take this there. In fact, I can't and still keep the combo focus. It just wouldn't work.
OUT >> IN
Bloodsoaked Champion >> Sarcomancy
Goblin Guide >> Mogg Fanatic
Soldier of the Pantheon >> Icatian Javelineers
Champion is the best generic 2 power 1 drop in the cube. It's super simple to recur, in a way that seems synergistic but really isn't. Have dudes swinging? It recurs. It's the Restoration Angel of blink. Card is just really good and is easy mode synergy. Crawler has higher upside since it's cheaper to recur but having a zombie is a design constraint (and a real one in most cubes). It signals the recur theme and plays very nice with black as a color. That's why crawler survives this cut. Sarcomancy is a card I like design wise. It plays into the zombie theme and it's an extra permanent for smokestack.
Guide is just... too good. Again, goes in everything that turns dudes sideways. And the "drawback" is bogus. Maybe there are certain matches where giving your opponent land hurts enough to offset this silly card, but I'm skeptical. Mogg Fanatic I miss because sac'ing it to deal with troublesome T1 dudes (birds, mother, etc) is something really useful. It still turns sideways. It's still a goblin. It's way worse as an aggressive beater, but that's the point.
Soldier could probably stay but the protection can randomly be really powerful and it's just another 2 power 1 drop I don't want feeding the easy-mode beatdown deck. Javalineers is not very good. It's slow and it hits like a limp noodle. Mogg Fanatic this is not (utility wise). Might swap this for something else later if it's just too janky. I like that it sticks around after pinging something though. White has crap CA and this actually is that sometimes.
Naya is being left untouched for now. Here's basically why... It requires a lot of focus on powerful fixing (mainly lands with basic land types). It's hard to draft. Kind Ape, Wild Nacatyl, even Steppe Lynx. Just aren't good without fetches to get the lands you need. There are ton of key cards you have to get in the draft. At a minimum, this deck needs good sequencing decisions to be solid. Something that can't be said for most other 2 power 1 drop aggro lists. The Naya deck is also just 1-1, including a trouncing by the RWU sneak-a-dragon deck.
Bant Opposition vs Elves!
I might have to rename the Bant deck to something other than opposition since I never can draw it. Let's see if this match follows that trend.
Game 1: Elves on the draw keep a dodgy hand full of gas but just two lands. Bant also with a slow hand. Tapped land go. Elves treetop village go. Bant T2 mox diamond discard island into Eternal Witness get back island. Elves still no 3rd land has to Green Sun’s Zenith for a llanowar elf. Bant T3 Shardless Agent and flips Gilded Drake (with Waterfront Bouncer in hand). Hmmm… not a great trade but maybe it mana hoses them? Play and steal LLanowar. Elves rips land and reclamation sage the agent, swing for 3. Bant Waterfront bouncer, go. Bant drawing mostly lands now. Elves sitting on a pile of late game goodness rips another land, Harmonize. Bant draws more land, Time Warp, Lotus Cobra, bouncer on Drake. Gah… where is the Opposition?!?? Elves Primal Command go get Kodama of the North Tree and gain 7 life. Bant draws Sunscape Familiar. Bloody hell. Elves Kodama, go. Bant, more land. This is not good. Elves Avenger of Zendikar holding Overrun. Bant steals it with Gilded Drake and bounces drake, but overrun for 21 easily gets it done. Man, Avenger…
Game 2: Pretty neat line of play here. Bant goes T1 Winter Orb off of a mox diamond. Yikes. This sets the scene for what will be a very well controlled game. Elves play Treetop and go. Bant follows with Waterfront Bouncer and then puts Simic Growth Chamber into play. Oh the sweet synergy. Elves Forest go (holding Green Sun’s for a T3 Rofellos? Not really sure at this point as waterfront is going to just wreck). Bant needs land, so ponder using mox diamond. Finds it, plays it go. Elves in a really bad spot goes zenith for Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Bant opts not to bounce. Instead, play land on their turn, holding Mystic Snake. Elves plays forest and tries to play the Reclamation Sage they just drew which is then snaked. Damn that could have turned it around right there without snake. Bant, untap growth chamber, man-o’-war on Rofellos. Certainly looks much worse for Elves now. Bant starts swinging with stuff. Between growth chamber, winter orb and mox diamond, it’s pretty easy to just stretch the lead for a bit. Bant with the slowest clock ever though so it’s not quite over. Elves finally untaps enough lands to get Rofellos under Sylvan Safekeeper protection to nullify bouncer. That leads to a follow-up Primeval Titan and all of a sudden it’s not so certain. By this point, Bant had Meloku the clouded mirror in play and manages an armageddon with a couple bird tokens. Drawing every card in the Bant deck not named Opposition. That slows Elves down enough to get the win before prime time + Rofellos can get control back again. Slyvan Safekeeper doing so much work in this scenario since the game was effectively over until that came down to keep Rofellos in play. Didn’t matter in the end, but this was way closer than it really should have been because of green mother of runes.
Really interesting game 2. Obviously Winter Orb is a dumb card, but it was just so powerful with a bounce land + mox since that was 3 mana each turn vs just 1 mana on the other side. Only Rofellos and later prime time made this game remotely competitive. Fun fact, that’s now 6 straight games not drawing Opposition. I double checked after the game just to make sure the card was really in this deck. Side note, I’m swapping Pelakka Wurm back in for Avenger of Zendikar. Avenger is a really neat card. It’s a tad powerful for this list though, particularly with things like Natural Order and Rofellos. The wurm is a solid card but not amazing so it may not stick. I just want to soften the ramp deck a tiny bit since it’s so damn explosive.
Game 3: A bit of a let down in the rubber. Painfully slow start. Elves goes first, land, land, land zenith for Rofellos. Bant - being it’s slow ass self - doesn’t have a way to punish that. Does bounce Rofellos with Man-o’war but can’t stop the recast. Bant with Tradewind Rider into Oracle of Mul Daya, but it’s too slow on the draw unfortunately. Elves with Wood Elves recast Rofellos (the fact that wood elves puts the forest into play untapped was huge here - it's the reason I like wood elves so much). Next turn Deranged Hermit and doomsday has arrived. Tradewind bounces Rofellos, echo paid on hermit. Swing for 8, replay Rofellos. Bant Gilded Drake steals Rofellos but it’s all for naught as Elves drops overrun and swings. Blocks plus tradewind bounce can’t stop enough damage. Death by squirrels is a good way to go out I suppose.
Elves win 2-1!
Well, Rofellos - like all fast mana - is very busted early. Zenith enabled that in two games, winning one with ease and keeping one that should have been a blowout close. Overrun is also a hugely underrated card. I know most power cubes are just running OG Garruk, but overrun is still extremely potent for a 5 mana card. Hermit ain’t bad either and is clearly the perfect compliment. Oh, and that’s now 7 straight games without drawing Opposition. I moved Enlightened Tutor to this deck because this is going from funny to annoying.
I might have to rename the Bant deck to something other than opposition since I never can draw it. Let's see if this match follows that trend.
Game 1: Elves on the draw keep a dodgy hand full of gas but just two lands. Bant also with a slow hand. Tapped land go. Elves treetop village go. Bant T2 mox diamond discard island into Eternal Witness get back island. Elves still no 3rd land has to Green Sun’s Zenith for a llanowar elf. Bant T3 Shardless Agent and flips Gilded Drake (with Waterfront Bouncer in hand). Hmmm… not a great trade but maybe it mana hoses them? Play and steal LLanowar. Elves rips land and reclamation sage the agent, swing for 3. Bant Waterfront bouncer, go. Bant drawing mostly lands now. Elves sitting on a pile of late game goodness rips another land, Harmonize. Bant draws more land, Time Warp, Lotus Cobra, bouncer on Drake. Gah… where is the Opposition?!?? Elves Primal Command go get Kodama of the North Tree and gain 7 life. Bant draws Sunscape Familiar. Bloody hell. Elves Kodama, go. Bant, more land. This is not good. Elves Avenger of Zendikar holding Overrun. Bant steals it with Gilded Drake and bounces drake, but overrun for 21 easily gets it done. Man, Avenger…
Game 2: Pretty neat line of play here. Bant goes T1 Winter Orb off of a mox diamond. Yikes. This sets the scene for what will be a very well controlled game. Elves play Treetop and go. Bant follows with Waterfront Bouncer and then puts Simic Growth Chamber into play. Oh the sweet synergy. Elves Forest go (holding Green Sun’s for a T3 Rofellos? Not really sure at this point as waterfront is going to just wreck). Bant needs land, so ponder using mox diamond. Finds it, plays it go. Elves in a really bad spot goes zenith for Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Bant opts not to bounce. Instead, play land on their turn, holding Mystic Snake. Elves plays forest and tries to play the Reclamation Sage they just drew which is then snaked. Damn that could have turned it around right there without snake. Bant, untap growth chamber, man-o’-war on Rofellos. Certainly looks much worse for Elves now. Bant starts swinging with stuff. Between growth chamber, winter orb and mox diamond, it’s pretty easy to just stretch the lead for a bit. Bant with the slowest clock ever though so it’s not quite over. Elves finally untaps enough lands to get Rofellos under Sylvan Safekeeper protection to nullify bouncer. That leads to a follow-up Primeval Titan and all of a sudden it’s not so certain. By this point, Bant had Meloku the clouded mirror in play and manages an armageddon with a couple bird tokens. Drawing every card in the Bant deck not named Opposition. That slows Elves down enough to get the win before prime time + Rofellos can get control back again. Slyvan Safekeeper doing so much work in this scenario since the game was effectively over until that came down to keep Rofellos in play. Didn’t matter in the end, but this was way closer than it really should have been because of green mother of runes.
Really interesting game 2. Obviously Winter Orb is a dumb card, but it was just so powerful with a bounce land + mox since that was 3 mana each turn vs just 1 mana on the other side. Only Rofellos and later prime time made this game remotely competitive. Fun fact, that’s now 6 straight games not drawing Opposition. I double checked after the game just to make sure the card was really in this deck. Side note, I’m swapping Pelakka Wurm back in for Avenger of Zendikar. Avenger is a really neat card. It’s a tad powerful for this list though, particularly with things like Natural Order and Rofellos. The wurm is a solid card but not amazing so it may not stick. I just want to soften the ramp deck a tiny bit since it’s so damn explosive.
Game 3: A bit of a let down in the rubber. Painfully slow start. Elves goes first, land, land, land zenith for Rofellos. Bant - being it’s slow ass self - doesn’t have a way to punish that. Does bounce Rofellos with Man-o’war but can’t stop the recast. Bant with Tradewind Rider into Oracle of Mul Daya, but it’s too slow on the draw unfortunately. Elves with Wood Elves recast Rofellos (the fact that wood elves puts the forest into play untapped was huge here - it's the reason I like wood elves so much). Next turn Deranged Hermit and doomsday has arrived. Tradewind bounces Rofellos, echo paid on hermit. Swing for 8, replay Rofellos. Bant Gilded Drake steals Rofellos but it’s all for naught as Elves drops overrun and swings. Blocks plus tradewind bounce can’t stop enough damage. Death by squirrels is a good way to go out I suppose.
Elves win 2-1!
Well, Rofellos - like all fast mana - is very busted early. Zenith enabled that in two games, winning one with ease and keeping one that should have been a blowout close. Overrun is also a hugely underrated card. I know most power cubes are just running OG Garruk, but overrun is still extremely potent for a 5 mana card. Hermit ain’t bad either and is clearly the perfect compliment. Oh, and that’s now 7 straight games without drawing Opposition. I moved Enlightened Tutor to this deck because this is going from funny to annoying.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I don't actually like your mono-black deck at all; your black section is badly contructed, to the point where in order to win it needs to draw upon a critical density of black cards. I started doing some test drafts, forcing black decks, and found it fairely miserable, throwing all of them away in the end. There is hardly any black removal, and large swaths of the section seem to be devoted to combo support, or more cards that lean towards specific linear strategies, rather than the foundational flexible draft picks that you need to drive a draft.
Looking over your winning games with the deck, all but one of them was against another deck splashing black, which basically means the mono-black deck was always going to better positioned to leverage the available pool of black cards in general. One deck is running the best black cards, in the only shell best structured to run them, and is being massively rewarded for doing so by the fairely trite decision to stay on color rails. The other deck is running the bones of those watered down support elements.
Looking over your winning games with the deck, all but one of them was against another deck splashing black, which basically means the mono-black deck was always going to better positioned to leverage the available pool of black cards in general. One deck is running the best black cards, in the only shell best structured to run them, and is being massively rewarded for doing so by the fairely trite decision to stay on color rails. The other deck is running the bones of those watered down support elements.
Thanks for the feedback.
As the cube is combo, it's not really going to revolve around flexible draft picks. This isn't really an incremental-magic sort of cube which is what flexible cards generally support. To some extent drafting is going to feel a lot less flexible here. Not sure there's really any way around that. Many of the combo pieces require a critical mass of effects to work. Almost all the combo pieces are miles more powerful than a fair incremental deck will be, so you are highly incentivized to assemble them.
Black has been designed around devotion largely, so it's a fairly extreme example too. And some people are not going to like it unfortunately. I've drafted this list in cubetutor maybe 100 times now? Not sure how many black decks I've made though. Mono black is tough to pull together. A lot of the black cards get snatched up by combo, so it is splashy as a color. Bx decks lean heavily on their secondary color too and you really only want black for some powerful pieces - disruption and bob being two big ones. Sacrifice deck has a ton of support though. You can go red for more of a combo thing or white for more of a token anthem version. Black gives you some reach though and potent things like braids and various pox effects. Abyssal Persecutor is also one of the most powerful creatures in the cube. It just wins games on it's own since it's so hard to remove or block in an advantageous way.
Black removal is something I'm not fully settled on. I have 3 187 creatures now. Mostly edicts (which go with the sacrifice theme). Regular targeted black removal really isn't very good just in general. White removal is cheaper or more versatile (exile and any non land permanent - no terror clause). Red burn is just better all around being both removal and reach. Targeted black removal is also the very definition of a splash card where Gx and Ux decks are more than happy to grab them. Maybe murderous cut deserves a slot though? Need to test doomwake giant more first. If it doesn't survive I will have room for another black spell.
What changes were you thinking?
As the cube is combo, it's not really going to revolve around flexible draft picks. This isn't really an incremental-magic sort of cube which is what flexible cards generally support. To some extent drafting is going to feel a lot less flexible here. Not sure there's really any way around that. Many of the combo pieces require a critical mass of effects to work. Almost all the combo pieces are miles more powerful than a fair incremental deck will be, so you are highly incentivized to assemble them.
Black has been designed around devotion largely, so it's a fairly extreme example too. And some people are not going to like it unfortunately. I've drafted this list in cubetutor maybe 100 times now? Not sure how many black decks I've made though. Mono black is tough to pull together. A lot of the black cards get snatched up by combo, so it is splashy as a color. Bx decks lean heavily on their secondary color too and you really only want black for some powerful pieces - disruption and bob being two big ones. Sacrifice deck has a ton of support though. You can go red for more of a combo thing or white for more of a token anthem version. Black gives you some reach though and potent things like braids and various pox effects. Abyssal Persecutor is also one of the most powerful creatures in the cube. It just wins games on it's own since it's so hard to remove or block in an advantageous way.
Black removal is something I'm not fully settled on. I have 3 187 creatures now. Mostly edicts (which go with the sacrifice theme). Regular targeted black removal really isn't very good just in general. White removal is cheaper or more versatile (exile and any non land permanent - no terror clause). Red burn is just better all around being both removal and reach. Targeted black removal is also the very definition of a splash card where Gx and Ux decks are more than happy to grab them. Maybe murderous cut deserves a slot though? Need to test doomwake giant more first. If it doesn't survive I will have room for another black spell.
What changes were you thinking?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think those catagories that that guy came up with are fine, but shouldn't dictate, or hold back design. Its a cube interested in tolerating unfair combos, but you still are looking for a core of flexible picks that can be skewed to fit into an archetypal direction. And cards like doomwake giant, braids, unburial rites, and phyrexian arena are all incrimental gain/fair cards. If incrimental gain strategies are not well positioned in the meta, I would expect those types of cards to slot poorly, and water down the list to at least some extent.
The cards that popped to mind were:
You also have slaughter pact, doomblade, tragic push, and ultimate price, to consider which all seem solid. I would cut down on the edict effects--usually in cube/limited they are pretty terrible to have as flagship removal.
I would also probably experiment with skeletal scrying, if necro is playable here, that should be playable here, and its seen occasional vintage play (like a decade ago).
I got frustrated when I started to draft a pretty sweet looking UB deck, and it wasn't hard storm, but it was leaning as more of a control-combo deck, which should be a natural fit for the format. The entire thing fell apart though, because there was no black removal, and blue of course just has bounce, so I couldn't control the board at all.
The cards that popped to mind were:
You also have slaughter pact, doomblade, tragic push, and ultimate price, to consider which all seem solid. I would cut down on the edict effects--usually in cube/limited they are pretty terrible to have as flagship removal.
I would also probably experiment with skeletal scrying, if necro is playable here, that should be playable here, and its seen occasional vintage play (like a decade ago).
I got frustrated when I started to draft a pretty sweet looking UB deck, and it wasn't hard storm, but it was leaning as more of a control-combo deck, which should be a natural fit for the format. The entire thing fell apart though, because there was no black removal, and blue of course just has bounce, so I couldn't control the board at all.
Cool. I like murderous cut a lot. Damnation I've chosen to exclude on grounds of it being the same card as Wrath. But what about Languish? I had that in for a bit I think. No phyrexian mana at present, so dismember is not an option right now. Profane Command I actually think sucks. It's too expensive. I ran it for a long time in various iterations and finally cut it. Collective Brutality is another card I'd probably try and find room for if I had a copy. Maybe unearth? I like that it cycles and plays into reusing some utility dudes or busted stuff like messenger.
Doomwake Giant is not in for it's fair use. It's there for Replenish mainly (along with Eidolon of Blossoms). But it's narrow and I need to see if it's good enough when abused. More testing is needed.
Edit: I've also always been a fan of Black Sun's Zenith. It's expensive too but it is always in your deck, so you can get multiple uses out of it. That's powerful in midrange cubes where I actually think it was better than a lot of other options. Not sure in combo though. Might be too slow.
Doomwake Giant is not in for it's fair use. It's there for Replenish mainly (along with Eidolon of Blossoms). But it's narrow and I need to see if it's good enough when abused. More testing is needed.
Edit: I've also always been a fan of Black Sun's Zenith. It's expensive too but it is always in your deck, so you can get multiple uses out of it. That's powerful in midrange cubes where I actually think it was better than a lot of other options. Not sure in combo though. Might be too slow.
Small update based on feedback from Grillo along with two other small changes.
OUT >> IN
Doomwake Giant >> Murderous Cut
Undead Gladiator >> Languish
Icatian Javelineers >> Thraben Inspector
Eidolon of Blossoms >> Sarruk, The Hunt Caller
Targeted removal and another sweeper to help Bx control. Losing doomwake means eidolon is less valuable now. Sarruk was fun in my midrange list. Trying to avoid something obtuse like Polukranos so let's see what this does. At a minimum, it will help push some more aggressive Gx decks. Thraben Inspector has too much synergy to ignore. WW will still play it and tinker gets better with it's inclusion.
OUT >> IN
Doomwake Giant >> Murderous Cut
Undead Gladiator >> Languish
Icatian Javelineers >> Thraben Inspector
Eidolon of Blossoms >> Sarruk, The Hunt Caller
Targeted removal and another sweeper to help Bx control. Losing doomwake means eidolon is less valuable now. Sarruk was fun in my midrange list. Trying to avoid something obtuse like Polukranos so let's see what this does. At a minimum, it will help push some more aggressive Gx decks. Thraben Inspector has too much synergy to ignore. WW will still play it and tinker gets better with it's inclusion.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Kind of spicy
I've always liked the idea of having UB ramp, and UB reanimator, where you can play somewhat slower games due to black control elements, but if you can marry them together you get storm. Unfortunatly, these formats always struggled with spell based ramp.
Whats horn of greed for?
Stormanimator the Opposition from CubeTutor.com
| | | | | |
| |||||
| |||||
I've always liked the idea of having UB ramp, and UB reanimator, where you can play somewhat slower games due to black control elements, but if you can marry them together you get storm. Unfortunatly, these formats always struggled with spell based ramp.
Whats horn of greed for?