Chris Taylor
Contributor
Also remember not all of them get played, since there's deffinitly decks where you can't afford a colorless slot, or just end up going control instead and don't really want to keep the game in the early stages
sharzad (safra's cube)
- Thread starter safra
- Start date
I wasn't even sure I was gonna do a BFZ prerelease (again, no squad) but I decided in the shower I was gonna head down and see if I could keep pulling only Cubeable rares (spoiler alert: still true, later i'll dish on this). It's a pretty impromptu decision, so I can't heed CML's advice and hit up the hobby store with a protective emotional buffer, at least not if I want to get there on time.
As I'm getting ready to head out the door my roomie/BFF comes in from, it turns out, an awkward/delightful date adjacent to but not part of an orgy of beautiful latin twinks. Of course I linger on the steps to talk about it, and of course now I'm running even more late. I accidentally forget my keys on my desk when I run back in to pick up a pile of Cube cuts; maybe somebody'll want these, I think. Not as much as I'll want my keys tonight, dumbass!
Should I have called to make sure they weren't at capacity? Fuck it, I'm practically on the train at this point. I roll up to the store at 11:58 for the noon pre-release, but there's a dozen people in a line that stretches out the door ahead of me waiting to sign up. They're ruining my buzzer-beater (I don't actually get in the door until 12:01) but it's okay because some of them are cool.
There's an awkward hoot, then a silence, and chuckles, when the TO mentions the new Vancouver mulligan rule; hometown pride isn't really something we're good at. There's scattered discussion about the upcoming GP, how the midnight pre-release went, and the other kinds of shit nerds say to fill time. A guy at my table is almost done putting together his "modern blue-red deck", and though I say 'cool' i hope he knows i think he is a bad deckbuilder and his moustache is awful. I ask a heavyset man in a Jays cap (fucking bandwagoner) if he knows how fast or slow the limited format is and he explains to me that I want 40 cards in my deck. My phone's plugged in charging, but I still don't have time to listen to this. Just then the TO announces pairings are up and round one is go:
I sit down against someone I haven't played before. This applies to like half the people in the store, to be fair, both because there are store regulars I don't know and also a bunch of people just there for the event. He has orange ultra-pro sleeves, mine are blue. I'm kind of flustered, and as I dig through my bag I realize I don't have any dice. Can I borrow one, I ask? No, sorry, you should have one in your deckbox. Yes, I know, but I don't. See? No spares. (the store owner hands me a lifepad, problem solved.)
I don't remember much about his deck other than that he had a couple counterspells and was in BUG colours, lots of bomby eldrazi. What I do remember is him getting gruffer and gruffer with my misplays (it is loud and we are having fun!) until he gets real salty about a second-main land drop. He doesn't remember if I've already played a land that turn (I haven't), and as we dance around the subject I just ask him if he thinks I'm cheating. "I wouldn't say that yet", he replies. Cold, dude! Anyway, I waste my early removal g1 and can't deal with his bombs, and g2 his fliers Get There after a long board stall. My three-colour deck manages to cast Bring To Light converged at 5 twice in two games, he counters it both times. I'm practically inconsolable, but hopefully my next opponent can be a rebound. 0-2, and I sit down with my sideboard and re-jigger my deck. I mentioned that I've had absurd booster luck at pre-releases, right? Because, in six boosters:
-Akoum Firebird
-Greenwarden of Murasa
-Felidar Sovereign
-Bring to Light
-Shambling Vent
-foil Véronique Meignaud mountain
(my promo was a Sanctum of Ugin, whatever)
I've built into Bant midrange, with a few Awaken spells and a Halimar Tidecaller, some Ingest/Process synergy (which i never really get to work, too few enablers in my pool), three Kozilek's Channeler and a couple seven-drops. My removal is sparse and mostly bounce, but I have solid fixing, a Vivid mana dork (who multiple times activates the manland i'm only running for Converge synergy), and a lot of goddamn pluck.
In round two I steamroll my opponent, who deserves it. There aren't a lot of words here, and I took even fewer notes, but that's definitely what happens. In the second game, I keep his big threat tapped for four turns (!) and win before he can block with it.
Between rounds, more chatter.
-What food is there around here?
-Well, uh, a starbucks across the street, and the worst Fresh Slice you've ever been to
-wait, like, worse than a regular Fresh Slice
-yeah, somehow, it's bizarre.
(another person chimes in, informing us he'd rather have hunger pangs than the stomach pain from that Fresh Slice's pizza)
-Isn't there a Subway?
-The lines are always super long though!
I eat my packed lunch and smirk. With five minutes until the next round, OP decides he'll probably just ID and sits tight.
Match 3 I sit down against a friendly bearded guy in a Mario toque and bundesliga jersey. I riskily keep a two-lander and his BW allies curve me into the dust by turn six, still with two lands on the board. gg bro
He has an awful lot of lifegain synergy but just one or two sources of lifegain, I think. How should I sideboard here? I bring in another early blocker for a Channeler. Game two he chooses to go second ("I love drawing cards") and curves Suntail Hawk Kor into an 0/6 Wall, which on turn three he gives Angelic Blessing.
I pretend to go into the tank about something but my only real decision is between anguish and acceptance that I've been lucksacked by a much worse deck. You guys know this one, right? Awful feeling. Eventually I play a Giant Mantis (which his deck largely folds to), and then a second one, and then Felidar Sovereign bounces off his wall until I'm at 40 life. Game three he topdecks five lands and then rips a Plains to cast the Desolation Twin that's been rotting in his hand. I double Smite the Monstrous it and kill him. He doesn't want me to take a look at his deck. Okay, bro. Keep me updated on how that goes.
I stand to make six packs if I win match four and nothing if I lose, since I lost my first match. Also, it's loud and stuffy in the store, even if people have already started to leave. My opponent and I ID and then play for fun, which is good, because his deck is much, much better than mine. He beats me in two relatively quick games, we shake hands, and then do a bit of trading. Conveniently enough the random Cube cut-pile I grabbed on my way out the door is super interesting to him, so he trades me a couple of his rares he doesn't want; including a a From Beyond from one of his prize packs. My packs have a BFZ dual and Drana, the streak continues. When I get home, I make the same triumphant pose my roommate did that morning. Truly this was, indeed, a battle, for zendikar. i hope you enjoyed reading this report as much as i enjoyed writing it, lol (Lots Of Love)
BFZ patch (and various cuts since the Origins patch)
OUT
IN
void winnower is pretty big, but it's definitely weird (and cool) enough I want to try it as a mind-bogglingly huge creature. If I cut it I'll probably choose some big artifact fatty to add more depth to Welder strategies. From having played with Bring To Light I'm very excited for it in Cube; I felt a real constraint in which cheap removal spell I could Converge it into (since i did not have cheap removal spells) but the times I also got to play creatures, or Converge for 4 or 5 and just do sick biznasty things to the board were amazing. Probably my Prelease standout card.
Any of my cuts make you sad?
As I'm getting ready to head out the door my roomie/BFF comes in from, it turns out, an awkward/delightful date adjacent to but not part of an orgy of beautiful latin twinks. Of course I linger on the steps to talk about it, and of course now I'm running even more late. I accidentally forget my keys on my desk when I run back in to pick up a pile of Cube cuts; maybe somebody'll want these, I think. Not as much as I'll want my keys tonight, dumbass!
Should I have called to make sure they weren't at capacity? Fuck it, I'm practically on the train at this point. I roll up to the store at 11:58 for the noon pre-release, but there's a dozen people in a line that stretches out the door ahead of me waiting to sign up. They're ruining my buzzer-beater (I don't actually get in the door until 12:01) but it's okay because some of them are cool.
There's an awkward hoot, then a silence, and chuckles, when the TO mentions the new Vancouver mulligan rule; hometown pride isn't really something we're good at. There's scattered discussion about the upcoming GP, how the midnight pre-release went, and the other kinds of shit nerds say to fill time. A guy at my table is almost done putting together his "modern blue-red deck", and though I say 'cool' i hope he knows i think he is a bad deckbuilder and his moustache is awful. I ask a heavyset man in a Jays cap (fucking bandwagoner) if he knows how fast or slow the limited format is and he explains to me that I want 40 cards in my deck. My phone's plugged in charging, but I still don't have time to listen to this. Just then the TO announces pairings are up and round one is go:
I sit down against someone I haven't played before. This applies to like half the people in the store, to be fair, both because there are store regulars I don't know and also a bunch of people just there for the event. He has orange ultra-pro sleeves, mine are blue. I'm kind of flustered, and as I dig through my bag I realize I don't have any dice. Can I borrow one, I ask? No, sorry, you should have one in your deckbox. Yes, I know, but I don't. See? No spares. (the store owner hands me a lifepad, problem solved.)
I don't remember much about his deck other than that he had a couple counterspells and was in BUG colours, lots of bomby eldrazi. What I do remember is him getting gruffer and gruffer with my misplays (it is loud and we are having fun!) until he gets real salty about a second-main land drop. He doesn't remember if I've already played a land that turn (I haven't), and as we dance around the subject I just ask him if he thinks I'm cheating. "I wouldn't say that yet", he replies. Cold, dude! Anyway, I waste my early removal g1 and can't deal with his bombs, and g2 his fliers Get There after a long board stall. My three-colour deck manages to cast Bring To Light converged at 5 twice in two games, he counters it both times. I'm practically inconsolable, but hopefully my next opponent can be a rebound. 0-2, and I sit down with my sideboard and re-jigger my deck. I mentioned that I've had absurd booster luck at pre-releases, right? Because, in six boosters:
-Akoum Firebird
-Greenwarden of Murasa
-Felidar Sovereign
-Bring to Light
-Shambling Vent
-foil Véronique Meignaud mountain
(my promo was a Sanctum of Ugin, whatever)
I've built into Bant midrange, with a few Awaken spells and a Halimar Tidecaller, some Ingest/Process synergy (which i never really get to work, too few enablers in my pool), three Kozilek's Channeler and a couple seven-drops. My removal is sparse and mostly bounce, but I have solid fixing, a Vivid mana dork (who multiple times activates the manland i'm only running for Converge synergy), and a lot of goddamn pluck.
In round two I steamroll my opponent, who deserves it. There aren't a lot of words here, and I took even fewer notes, but that's definitely what happens. In the second game, I keep his big threat tapped for four turns (!) and win before he can block with it.
Between rounds, more chatter.
-What food is there around here?
-Well, uh, a starbucks across the street, and the worst Fresh Slice you've ever been to
-wait, like, worse than a regular Fresh Slice
-yeah, somehow, it's bizarre.
(another person chimes in, informing us he'd rather have hunger pangs than the stomach pain from that Fresh Slice's pizza)
-Isn't there a Subway?
-The lines are always super long though!
I eat my packed lunch and smirk. With five minutes until the next round, OP decides he'll probably just ID and sits tight.
Match 3 I sit down against a friendly bearded guy in a Mario toque and bundesliga jersey. I riskily keep a two-lander and his BW allies curve me into the dust by turn six, still with two lands on the board. gg bro
He has an awful lot of lifegain synergy but just one or two sources of lifegain, I think. How should I sideboard here? I bring in another early blocker for a Channeler. Game two he chooses to go second ("I love drawing cards") and curves Suntail Hawk Kor into an 0/6 Wall, which on turn three he gives Angelic Blessing.
I pretend to go into the tank about something but my only real decision is between anguish and acceptance that I've been lucksacked by a much worse deck. You guys know this one, right? Awful feeling. Eventually I play a Giant Mantis (which his deck largely folds to), and then a second one, and then Felidar Sovereign bounces off his wall until I'm at 40 life. Game three he topdecks five lands and then rips a Plains to cast the Desolation Twin that's been rotting in his hand. I double Smite the Monstrous it and kill him. He doesn't want me to take a look at his deck. Okay, bro. Keep me updated on how that goes.
I stand to make six packs if I win match four and nothing if I lose, since I lost my first match. Also, it's loud and stuffy in the store, even if people have already started to leave. My opponent and I ID and then play for fun, which is good, because his deck is much, much better than mine. He beats me in two relatively quick games, we shake hands, and then do a bit of trading. Conveniently enough the random Cube cut-pile I grabbed on my way out the door is super interesting to him, so he trades me a couple of his rares he doesn't want; including a a From Beyond from one of his prize packs. My packs have a BFZ dual and Drana, the streak continues. When I get home, I make the same triumphant pose my roommate did that morning. Truly this was, indeed, a battle, for zendikar. i hope you enjoyed reading this report as much as i enjoyed writing it, lol (Lots Of Love)
BFZ patch (and various cuts since the Origins patch)
OUT
IN
void winnower is pretty big, but it's definitely weird (and cool) enough I want to try it as a mind-bogglingly huge creature. If I cut it I'll probably choose some big artifact fatty to add more depth to Welder strategies. From having played with Bring To Light I'm very excited for it in Cube; I felt a real constraint in which cheap removal spell I could Converge it into (since i did not have cheap removal spells) but the times I also got to play creatures, or Converge for 4 or 5 and just do sick biznasty things to the board were amazing. Probably my Prelease standout card.
Any of my cuts make you sad?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
this only confirms my impression that prereleases are miserable
I'm surprised you didn't miss the prerelease with that kind of hot news tbh
OUT
IN
Any of my cuts make you sad?
I was sad to see Sarkhan Vol go. He's such a great Planeswalker imho. Haste enablers are really spicy, maindeckable anthems are suuuuper choice, and threaten effects are really nice, too. I think he's probably one of the better-designed toolbox 'walkers because despite his potential, he rarely feels cheap, and he gives G/R things to think about, which I value highly; G/R can sometimes feel pretty linear (curve out=stompfest) so I like anything that makes my drafters think.
How was Relic Seeker? Underdrafted, underperforming, all of the above? I really wanted him to work out, and I love the promo art.
I'm not sure I understand the appeal of Painful Truths (why not Read the Bones or Pain's Reward?) or Akoum Firebird, so I would really be curious to hear why you decided to try them/how they work out! Firebird in particular seems so lackluster; I'd probably be on-board myself if not for that must-attack clause, which to me makes it bird cage lining, because must-attack ruins everything. I'm really curious to hear how that plays out, because I'd like some more fun fliers in red.
she immediately went to bed, we texted while i was playing
Great points, he's back in!
Undersupported, underdrafted, underwhelming,. Keeping my promo though because I think it's workable, it just wasn't in that context. Becoming a 3/3 when it's Renowned is deceptively nice.
Truths is up-front card draw, and potentially three cards for three mana. Night's Whisper is also in the cube and I wanted something that felt a mana more expensive than that.
Firebird I'm just trying out, but the really good drafter at the store is hot on it and I love red graveyard themes. You can bring it back second main (or during declare attackers) and it doesn't have to attack that turn, as well. I'm probably wrong about this but I always like to check!
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Void winnower surprises me too: seems a bit pricy for your enviornment.
You're showing timely hoardmate both being cut as well as being added?
Not a huge fan of harness by force. Its a mana sink yes, but the instant speed untappers are so much more interesting, as they can be used to abuse untap effects, or complicate combat in interesting ways. Blind with anger is a lot of fun, the new threaten effect from BFZ is similar, and grab the reins is a better mana sink i.m.o.
With most of the other threatens, I found that people played them horribly. The theme kind of sort of has density issues, and drafters just ended up largely playing them as these boring, linear psudo burn spells, rather than using them intelligently. They also turn my big ramp targets into feel bads when a player goes through the trouble of getting an eldrazi out, and than it just turns around and kills them.
I don't really like pure synergy cards like smothering a-bomb. I like that you are not cutting a banishing light effect for q-field. Those types of cards are kind of necessary for cube, and its good to have some variety.
You're showing timely hoardmate both being cut as well as being added?
Not a huge fan of harness by force. Its a mana sink yes, but the instant speed untappers are so much more interesting, as they can be used to abuse untap effects, or complicate combat in interesting ways. Blind with anger is a lot of fun, the new threaten effect from BFZ is similar, and grab the reins is a better mana sink i.m.o.
With most of the other threatens, I found that people played them horribly. The theme kind of sort of has density issues, and drafters just ended up largely playing them as these boring, linear psudo burn spells, rather than using them intelligently. They also turn my big ramp targets into feel bads when a player goes through the trouble of getting an eldrazi out, and than it just turns around and kills them.
I don't really like pure synergy cards like smothering a-bomb. I like that you are not cutting a banishing light effect for q-field. Those types of cards are kind of necessary for cube, and its good to have some variety.
oops! I actually brought in Angel of Finality. which I'm excited to try.
Way too pricy, I'm hoping somebody cheats it out. I have a reanimator guy now who's got me excited.
The analysis of threaten effects rings true to me, it's rough! I'll try Blind with Anger instead. Thanks for the feedback!
(smothering abomination is a straight house)
How does Mental Misstep perform? I keep wanting to try it but I'm not sure if it's something I necessarily want in my environ.
Force Spike on turn one, protect the queen from cheap removal, sometimes it's not great against the slower decks but it's always powerful against aggro.
More often than not I'd say it goes in blue over non-blue decks, remember that it basically has Kicker
: gain 2 life.Also don't forget that it gets better as your overall curve gets lower. There are tons of good one-drops these days worth countering.
I'm on to second-level tinkering with my Cube with Aoret's fetch&waste experiment. The exciting thing is that it'll allow me to free up 24 slots in my Cube! Ten of them are going to be the WWK/BFZ/OGW manlands, and I'm moving Shelldock, Cradle, Phyrexian Tower, and Karakas into the main list, which leaves the most exciting part: 10 slots for custom cards to fill niches in my environment. I'm taking the opportunity to buff a couple of cards as well, which I'll list separately for feedback.
I posted about this in the customs thread the other day and I think I've narrowed it down to a shortlist but I'd love some feedback on a final 10.
Bujalski, Forcemage OR Wishra's Light
Bestial Mask
Grim Bargain
Yixlid Spectre
Wilt-Leaf Visionary
Sanctified Cavalier
Drown in Lava
Veteran Chronarch
Solar Flare
Goblin Pyrocrat
Flaming Arrow
Chain Reckoning
Threads of Control
Magus of the Grid OR Steelsworn Paladin
Bib Fortuna (from the star wars fantasy set)
I'm leaning towards the first ten, with the next five as tight maybes. Talk me out of (into) doing something stupid!
I posted about this in the customs thread the other day and I think I've narrowed it down to a shortlist but I'd love some feedback on a final 10.
Bujalski, Forcemage OR Wishra's Light
Bestial Mask
Grim Bargain
Yixlid Spectre
Wilt-Leaf Visionary
Sanctified Cavalier
Drown in Lava
Veteran Chronarch
Solar Flare
Goblin Pyrocrat
Flaming Arrow
Chain Reckoning
Threads of Control
Magus of the Grid OR Steelsworn Paladin
Bib Fortuna (from the star wars fantasy set)
I'm leaning towards the first ten, with the next five as tight maybes. Talk me out of (into) doing something stupid!
Pick the Wrong Fight>Gather the Townsfolk (my version of GtT is an Instant)
Expedition Map now also has ", sac ~: shuffle your graveyard into your library"
Augur of Meletis>Augur of Bolas
Nivmagus Raider>Goblin Welder (i'll find a home for Welder but it doesn't need to be this cube right now)
Forgotten Huntress>Atarka's Command
Rejuvenating Anthem>Spear of Heliod
Brass Cave>Evolving Wilds (ULD)
Nullstone Monolith>Prismatic Lens
1 Idea Plant>1 Brainstorm
Force of Will>Misdirection
Containment Priest>Leonin Relic-Warder
Expedition Map now also has "
, sac ~: shuffle your graveyard into your library"Augur of Meletis>Augur of Bolas
Nivmagus Raider>Goblin Welder (i'll find a home for Welder but it doesn't need to be this cube right now)
Forgotten Huntress>Atarka's Command
Rejuvenating Anthem>Spear of Heliod
Brass Cave>Evolving Wilds (ULD)
Nullstone Monolith>Prismatic Lens
1 Idea Plant>1 Brainstorm
Force of Will>Misdirection
Containment Priest>Leonin Relic-Warder
I'm on to second-level tinkering with my Cube with Aoret's fetch&waste experiment. The exciting thing is that it'll allow me to free up 24 slots in my Cube! Ten of them are going to be the WWK/BFZ/OGW manlands, and I'm moving Shelldock, Cradle, Phyrexian Tower, and Karakas into the main list, which leaves the most exciting part: 10 slots for custom cards to fill niches in my environment. I'm taking the opportunity to buff a couple of cards as well, which I'll list separately for feedback.
I posted about this in the customs thread the other day and I think I've narrowed it down to a shortlist but I'd love some feedback on a final 10.
Bujalski, Forcemage OR Wishra's Light
Bestial Mask
Grim Bargain
Yixlid Spectre
Wilt-Leaf Visionary
Sanctified Cavalier
Drown in Lava
Veteran Chronarch
Solar Flare
Goblin Pyrocrat
Flaming Arrow
Chain Reckoning
Threads of Control
Magus of the Grid OR Steelsworn Paladin
Bib Fortuna (from the star wars fantasy set)
I'm leaning towards the first ten, with the next five as tight maybes. Talk me out of (into) doing something stupid!
Pick the Wrong Fight>Gather the Townsfolk (my version of GtT is an Instant)
Expedition Map now also has "
Augur of Meletis>Augur of Bolas
Nivmagus Raider>Goblin Welder (i'll find a home for Welder but it doesn't need to be this cube right now)
Forgotten Huntress>Atarka's Command
Rejuvenating Anthem>Spear of Heliod
Brass Cave>Evolving Wilds (ULD)
Nullstone Monolith>Prismatic Lens
1 Idea Plant>1 Brainstorm
Force of Will>Misdirection
Containment Priest>Leonin Relic-Warder
Haven't tested that version of Goblin Pyrocrat at all, hopefully its good enough. And not broken. Kinda should be broken, I think.
Do you have other versions? Like I said, I'm willing to be talked into broken, especially if I already have this one ready against complaints
Nah, I just used that name and art for several different cards.
Re: Kiku, please let me know how she works out for you. I have been dying to try her, but like CML, I have always been a tad wary that she can perform.
you're probably right, I'll make some changes when I boost aggro.
javelineers are a relic of a while ago i've kept to kill 2/1s
doomwake is the liminal enchantress theme and was supposed to hate on tokens. my other black 5s kinda obsolete it now tho and I can find something cooler.
kiku, see below:
she costs so much mana but she's removal for creature-heavy decks that doesn't kill walls (who I'd like them to have trouble with). she's so irrelevant until suddenly you're both topdecking and she kills three dudes before they can answer her (getting to do this is probably why i'm still running her tbh and i need a fairer eval). I might make her a 2/2 or change the ability to
, but I like the general idea of a weenie who hates on big dudes. I might cut her for a relevant custom card if it comes to it with this new experiment.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
New Year drafto earlier!
We did an 8-player draft that was us and a bunch of bots, I had a super-sweet 5C Pod deck:
Lots of fun lines with this one; I missed a kill where I could Bring to Light for 5 to get Titania, bring back a fetch, then use that mana to Pod Titania into Aurelia
Mystic Confluence is busted
We did an 8-player draft that was us and a bunch of bots, I had a super-sweet 5C Pod deck:
Lots of fun lines with this one; I missed a kill where I could Bring to Light for 5 to get Titania, bring back a fetch, then use that mana to Pod Titania into Aurelia
We then did a Grid Draft that you can find here, where I drafted this:
Mystic Confluence is busted
I was worried when it was first spoiled and I'm more convinced with each deck I see that Mystic Confluence is just busted to shit. You can bounce their board, Mana Leak + bounce and reset like two turns of work, or just try the one of everything special. Worst case scenario is Jace's Ingenuity which is amazing in any grindy matchup. I just feel like it's a monster trump in many matchups except against a really aggressive or disruptive deck. I feel way better running Cryptic than this, though I can see the appeal in certain lists.
I'm gonna cut it with my OGW patch.
After seeing your discussion of Doomsday combo resurface, I want to try it out in my own cube. What's been your experience with the archetype in your Cube, and what do you consider the "essential" Doomsday supports?
Haven't gotten it together in paper yet, but I forced the archetype a few times in Forge and went 2-1 each time, with about a third to half my wins through the combo.
(one esper deck, one sultai)
That's an optimistic report (the AI is not a real opponent, i wheeled things i shouldn'tve) but it gives me hope the archetype has wings. The thing I think is now more clear to me is how much of an engine combo deck this is, where you go heavy on the draw spells to find your combo and then re-cast them to win; if you have an early Doomsday your finding-the-combo game becomes your executing-the-combo game. So the key to DDLM combo is a)combo pieces that double as protection and b)ways to make the combo more explosive. I'll speak to each briefly.
a) is all those cards like Unearth, Darkblast, Miscalc, that either move cards between zones in a way you want or instead draw cards. Cycling is pretty big b/c it means you're more likely to have card draw in your hand to go off. ANT, Legacy's big storm deck, kinda spams cantrips and rituals, casts Past in Flames, spams more rituals, then kills with Tendrils for 20; legacy Doomsday needs the combo pilot to keep some of their card draw in-hand to pull off same-turn piles so paradoxically it both needs extra cantrips and gets less out of having them. In my incr. brief testing I was able to get a few same-turn kills but they all involved some very tight planning so I'm okay having that around.
"essential" combo pieces (i don't run Top):
(also this lil guy from my customs pile which i really like actually)
b) is mostly about fast mana and big card draw but also encompasses protecting your combo so you can go off earlier (i.e. against untapped islands, from their one discard spell). I like that now Dark Ritual has a 'real' home archetype, instead of enabling t1 Lilianas all day (i do love this though) and it's kind of key here (after, like, lotus would be) because it gives you
for Doomsday and then you can recast it as part of your pile, since you're probably mana-constrained, since you fired off a t1 Doomsday, dumbass.At high power levels free counters are probably key to protecting doomsday-pass-the-turn strats since you're likely comboing out as soon as possible, at my power level I've found playing as a combo-control deck naturally leaves me with mana and counterspells to cast doomsday, maybe draw a card, pass the turn with a counterspell live, keep it live as I cast lab man, and either keep it live or have a redundant draw spell as I draw the rest of my pile and win. I keep talking about protecting the combo b/c i think doomsday is uniquely situated; it combos with lab man and draw spells, and depending on how tightly you play you might have one or two slots in your pile you can use to push through weak disruption, and as a
combo deck it's in the best position to play both discard and countermagic. The feeling of playing a 'true control deck', where everything is card draw or answers except your combo pieces, was really fun. It felt like a tighter way for a creatureless control deck to win than mill, at any rate, while not feeling too clunky to draft or assemble. (the only really dead cards included are doomsday itself, lab man depending on your self-mill support, and maybe ritual? I like ritual though)Brainstorm is the other piece that holds the deck together; being able to "draw 3", if only for a moment, leads to some sweet combo kills. I've killed with Ponders though, it's just less cumbersome to tank if you have a brainstorm in hand. I haven't felt like the combo is unstoppable, but it's certainly pretty hard to stop if the pilot wants it to be and was able to draft something to stop you stopping them. Graveyard hate is actually kinda brutal, I played against a deathrite shaman deck with the esper build and couldn't get back spells I needed. Dredge is good also, and Dread Return might be too in a dredgier build. I don't think you could build the archetype as combo-control without Unearth or Brainstorm, and Ritual isn't essential but leads to better, more splash-friendly decks) but I guess it could even hypothetically be mono-black (darkblast to dredge lab man, unearth, painful truths (ouch) to win) since the engine's demands are sufficiently broad.
I may have overlooked it, but how do you do your ULD exactly, safra? How many picks do you give people, and do you have any special rules in play? And also, how are the tri-lands working out in the ULD?
I've gone back and forth on 3 or 4 picks but am currently at 4, snake drafted from either a Google Drive spreadsheet or a card binder passed around the table.
The tri-lands are really good and Jason is right to limit them to (triland of choice), the ability to pick two or more was enabling multi-splash gold decks more than I wanted. Limiting it slightly less, to triland of choice per player, might work if you don't want one drafter hosing anybody else because they took the land first.
I'm playing with adding some customs to the land draft but I'm not sure which or how many yet.