I love green with a light grixis splash! Drafts like this are the main reason i keep Emrakul in the cube, aside from Mindslaver turns being some of the most fun magic there is. Seeing the process of how to maximize and build around the p1 Emmy was super insightful and exactly the kind of drafting puzzle i’m trying to create! I know i’ve powered up the cube quite a bit since its beginnings, so i’m glad there’s still interesting decisions to be made. BTW Dismember wheeled because I added it to the cube about 2 days ago and the bots aren’t quite used to it yet haha.
General The Draft Exchange
- Thread starter Kirblinx
- Start date
Drafted Onder's:
First picked Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, then second picked Young Pyromancer. Third picked Porcelain Legionnaire which is always a good card, but was triply enticing as a card that can both trigger and be retrieved by Teshar. Fourth pick was Grand Warlord Radha, and I was having greedy visions of some sort of historic storm deck. That informed my Neheb, the Eternal pick later on. I ended up not seeing many cheap instants/sorceries that were viable for my deck, so Young Pyromancer was cut, but I feel like between Radha, Neheb, Teshar and Bloodbraid Elf this deck has awesome creature spell velocity, which is a super fun identity for Naya, which I usually rank as my least favorite shard/wedge.
I ended up with 9 cards that trigger Teshar. Would have liked 1-2 more. Ended up with 11 targets for Teshar, which I was very happy with, including some very juicy ones. Recurring the likes of Dauntless Bodyguard, Goblin Cratermaker, Knight of Autumn, Militia Bugler (which itself hits 9 targets), and Eternal Witness is sooo much value!!
Also, I love the idea with taking a big swing with the team, generating mana with Radha and Neheb, and then clocking villain with a massive Clan Defiance
Really, really fun draft.
Naya Historic from CubeTutor.com
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First picked Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, then second picked Young Pyromancer. Third picked Porcelain Legionnaire which is always a good card, but was triply enticing as a card that can both trigger and be retrieved by Teshar. Fourth pick was Grand Warlord Radha, and I was having greedy visions of some sort of historic storm deck. That informed my Neheb, the Eternal pick later on. I ended up not seeing many cheap instants/sorceries that were viable for my deck, so Young Pyromancer was cut, but I feel like between Radha, Neheb, Teshar and Bloodbraid Elf this deck has awesome creature spell velocity, which is a super fun identity for Naya, which I usually rank as my least favorite shard/wedge.
I ended up with 9 cards that trigger Teshar. Would have liked 1-2 more. Ended up with 11 targets for Teshar, which I was very happy with, including some very juicy ones. Recurring the likes of Dauntless Bodyguard, Goblin Cratermaker, Knight of Autumn, Militia Bugler (which itself hits 9 targets), and Eternal Witness is sooo much value!!
Also, I love the idea with taking a big swing with the team, generating mana with Radha and Neheb, and then clocking villain with a massive Clan Defiance
Really, really fun draft.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
That looks like a sweet deck 
Really happy you ended up with this, and with your feedback, for sure useful while I'm still figuring out what to add from Ravnica Allegiance. Thanks!
Really happy you ended up with this, and with your feedback, for sure useful while I'm still figuring out what to add from Ravnica Allegiance. Thanks!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
That looks like a sweet deck
Psst!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Nope. That's way too slot-intensive for me!
Drafting Rowan's Quartet Cube. Had a first-pick FoF and some early blue goodstuff into a P1P5 Thousand-Year Storm. We dem boyz!!! P1P6 M-Tutor into P7 Gamble shores up that I'm going all-in on combo. In pack 2, I find an early Young Pyromancer and Cloud of Faeries, plus a couple cantrips. Pack 3 gives me Pyrite Spellbomb and Frantic Search and Faithless Looting and Rise from the Tides, which is good, because I needed an actual win condition I think. A late Tog gives me wincon #2. I think this came together okay; would've liked another counterspell or a mana rock but that's on me I think.
Whoever's next - please draft my main cube, which has the first half of my RNA changes.
http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/4863
grixis Thousand Year Storm from CubeTutor.com
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Whoever's next - please draft my main cube, which has the first half of my RNA changes.
http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/4863
Drafting Safra's cube:
P1P1 Magus of the Bazaar, wanted to try something a little off the wall and that certainly fits the bill. Actively looking for stuff with madness, flashback, etc now. P1P2 Snappy to keep me in one color, and P1P3 a Bone Dragon because of how quickly we're filling the graveyard. I end up picking up Flameblade Adept, Faithless Looting and Avacyn's Judgment, as well as random fixing and a Mesmeric Orb. Maybe some sort of aggressive Grixis list? Who knows!
P2P1 I'm mainly in RB at this point and pick Gurmag Angler as a way to use all these cards we're binning. P2P2 gives me Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, and I'm sort of torn between being aggressive or grindy here. Then I pick up a Hollow one. Here we go! By the end of pack 2 I have 2 Bloodsoaked Champions and some mana fixing + scry lands in my colors.
P3P1 I go for Isareth into Asylum Visitor, plus a Necromancy and some large dudes, and I figure I've got enough discard outlets to make them not entirely useless. Plus, hasty Scuttling Doom Engine sounds grossssss.
Ended up with this list
*the amonkhet lands are the basic types + <> + scry lands (which i love)*
It's a little sketchy that I ended up splashing blue, but it seems functional to me! Really want to entomb an Anger on turn 1 and then Faithless Looting > Hollow One on turn 2
P1P1 Magus of the Bazaar, wanted to try something a little off the wall and that certainly fits the bill. Actively looking for stuff with madness, flashback, etc now. P1P2 Snappy to keep me in one color, and P1P3 a Bone Dragon because of how quickly we're filling the graveyard. I end up picking up Flameblade Adept, Faithless Looting and Avacyn's Judgment, as well as random fixing and a Mesmeric Orb. Maybe some sort of aggressive Grixis list? Who knows!
P2P1 I'm mainly in RB at this point and pick Gurmag Angler as a way to use all these cards we're binning. P2P2 gives me Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, and I'm sort of torn between being aggressive or grindy here. Then I pick up a Hollow one. Here we go! By the end of pack 2 I have 2 Bloodsoaked Champions and some mana fixing + scry lands in my colors.
P3P1 I go for Isareth into Asylum Visitor, plus a Necromancy and some large dudes, and I figure I've got enough discard outlets to make them not entirely useless. Plus, hasty Scuttling Doom Engine sounds grossssss.
Ended up with this list
RBu Hollow One from CubeTutor.com
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*the amonkhet lands are the basic types + <> + scry lands (which i love)*
It's a little sketchy that I ended up splashing blue, but it seems functional to me! Really want to entomb an Anger on turn 1 and then Faithless Looting > Hollow One on turn 2
Oh, damn I was on the wrong page. I'll draft astraedm now ...
P1P1 Young Pyro over Sun Titan. That little guy is just so tempting to draft around. The aggressive version of this deck just felt so well supported, everything just fell into place. In the end, I just wished, I could've gotten one or two more spells, while I had more than enough payoff-creatures to go with these. Also, today I just seem not capable of drafting a good mana base
Before that I already ...
... drafted Ondi's. I started with Feldon, because that seemed really interesting and tempting as a first pick, then I got Unvurial Rites pack two and I went for Mardu Reanimator. It was a pretty rough draft,because I felt sometimes like that deck is probably not viable, but whenever I was going to switch gears, something came along, that nourished my hopes again. In the end, I got 4 cards at least, that can bring my guys back to the battlefield directly, even though the others can't do it before turn 5, and I got two and a half good reanimation targets. Also, I got a deck, that can just play as a recursion value pile with a discard matters subtheme, so I'm far from unhappy!
P1P1 Young Pyro over Sun Titan. That little guy is just so tempting to draft around. The aggressive version of this deck just felt so well supported, everything just fell into place. In the end, I just wished, I could've gotten one or two more spells, while I had more than enough payoff-creatures to go with these. Also, today I just seem not capable of drafting a good mana base
Tempo Spells from CubeTutor.com
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Before that I already ...
... drafted Ondi's. I started with Feldon, because that seemed really interesting and tempting as a first pick, then I got Unvurial Rites pack two and I went for Mardu Reanimator. It was a pretty rough draft,because I felt sometimes like that deck is probably not viable, but whenever I was going to switch gears, something came along, that nourished my hopes again. In the end, I got 4 cards at least, that can bring my guys back to the battlefield directly, even though the others can't do it before turn 5, and I got two and a half good reanimation targets. Also, I got a deck, that can just play as a recursion value pile with a discard matters subtheme, so I'm far from unhappy!
BR/w Reanimator from CubeTutor.com
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Well, the mana is supposed to be terrible, since you're drafting a wildly unsupported shard
Only Orzhov is a supported guild, so there's no Boros or Rakdos lands at all Still a cool deck!
Here's what I got from ravnic's cube. Red/green stompy, quite low to the ground. Started with Llanowar Elves because it was a safe choice. It was interesting figuring out what themes were supported as I went through. I didn't see very many 1-drop creatures in pack 1 so I was pretty surprised when so many of them showed up later. I was originally thinking a ramp deck might be possible but it didn't seem like there was enough substance for it. The landfall payoffs didn't seem that tempting, so I didn't go in that direction. Looking back, the madness/graveyard aggro deck looks really fun to draft.
My cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/2671
My cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/2671
Nice deck!
From the one draft I did, I think you do. Maybe cut one or two and see if they still come together well? In this case, I would've been happy if the the Firebrand Archer would've been a cheap spell instead.
From the one draft I did, I think you do. Maybe cut one or two and see if they still come together well? In this case, I would've been happy if the the Firebrand Archer would've been a cheap spell instead.
Drafted Silas's Aggro-Friendly Cube.
Went in blind. P1P1'ed Braids, Cabal Minion and tried to build around it with a bunch of cheap recursive creatures and repeatable token generators. Ended up with Smokestack as well so I think we're really doing it:
I'd love to play this deck!
I was a bit thrown off by the conspiracies, but then again, I always am. They seem really, really powerful, but I also felt like they were just daring me to just give up the deck I was trying to draft and build around them instead. They strike me as very format warping. Worldknit in particular heavily rewards pure goodstuff drafting. I ended up passing on it, even though I probably could have ended up with a higher win percentage deck, because, here I was trying to draft a Braids deck, and Worldknit was going to make it harder for me to draw the card I was trying to build around. I'd be wary of that if you are trying to push synergies (and maybe you're not!) The Unexpected Potential is to cast Siege Rhino, by the way.
Went in blind. P1P1'ed Braids, Cabal Minion and tried to build around it with a bunch of cheap recursive creatures and repeatable token generators. Ended up with Smokestack as well so I think we're really doing it:
Golgari Stax from CubeTutor.com
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I'd love to play this deck!
I was a bit thrown off by the conspiracies, but then again, I always am. They seem really, really powerful, but I also felt like they were just daring me to just give up the deck I was trying to draft and build around them instead. They strike me as very format warping. Worldknit in particular heavily rewards pure goodstuff drafting. I ended up passing on it, even though I probably could have ended up with a higher win percentage deck, because, here I was trying to draft a Braids deck, and Worldknit was going to make it harder for me to draw the card I was trying to build around. I'd be wary of that if you are trying to push synergies (and maybe you're not!) The Unexpected Potential is to cast Siege Rhino, by the way.
Drafting Rowan_CB's low powered budget cube, which is about all I know going in.
First pick Rakdos Cackler because it's a high powered aggro card. Second pick Marionette Master because it looks like a high potential build around that could top out a deck that wants Cackler. I try to follow it up with an aggressive red/black deck with sacrifice and artifact synergies. In the end, I feel that the artifacts to support that component of the deck aren't there, but I ended up with a good amount of incidental discard synergy, which I tried to focus harder on in pack 3, and the creature sacrifice synergy is strong enough to be happy with.
First pick Rakdos Cackler because it's a high powered aggro card. Second pick Marionette Master because it looks like a high potential build around that could top out a deck that wants Cackler. I try to follow it up with an aggressive red/black deck with sacrifice and artifact synergies. In the end, I feel that the artifacts to support that component of the deck aren't there, but I ended up with a good amount of incidental discard synergy, which I tried to focus harder on in pack 3, and the creature sacrifice synergy is strong enough to be happy with.
adam's draft of The Quartet Cube on 06/02/2019 from CubeTutor.com
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That's a solid deck, and your draft summary is very useful.
It's nice to know that even when your original plan didn't fully materialize, you were still able to end up with something synergistic, and not just a pile of cards. The black/red artifact deck is possible, I think, but it doesn't come together as often as black/white or red/white. I wish there was a good artifact-centric Rakdos card to throw in as a bone to this type of deck. I've thought about Rakdos Riteknife but I think it's just too slow for the type of deck this wants to be, although the artifact/sacrifice crossover synergy is nice. Marionette Master does combo well with Feldon of the Third Path and Pia and Kiran Nalaar, so I wonder if you wouldn't end up sideboarding in against grindier decks if you felt you needed the reach.
It's nice to know that even when your original plan didn't fully materialize, you were still able to end up with something synergistic, and not just a pile of cards. The black/red artifact deck is possible, I think, but it doesn't come together as often as black/white or red/white. I wish there was a good artifact-centric Rakdos card to throw in as a bone to this type of deck. I've thought about Rakdos Riteknife but I think it's just too slow for the type of deck this wants to be, although the artifact/sacrifice crossover synergy is nice. Marionette Master does combo well with Feldon of the Third Path and Pia and Kiran Nalaar, so I wonder if you wouldn't end up sideboarding in against grindier decks if you felt you needed the reach.
drafted the KYOOB! Started with an first-pick E-Wit (maybe my favourite first-pick ever? goes in so many decks and I love them all) into Deathrite and Winter Orb. so: aggro-stax!
I was unsure about running Ankh of Mishra with this many fetchlands and Bob. probably it should be in here? I drafted it early
winter orb + elves good
elves + opposition good
vedalken shackles with only 3 islands is very loose but who cares it's shackles, you play shackles. nothing wrong with threads after all!
in my Cube this is the kind of black aggro deck I really like having Dark Ritual in. Wish I'd picked it up - would be fantastic here (the dream is obviously t1 deathrite + hymn)
I weeded the garden of my RNA changes a little; there are slightly fewer and a couple new ones. Probably these are the ones I'll add barring some strange new constructed role-player.
draft Sharzad here: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/4863
BUG aggro-stax from CubeTutor.com
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I was unsure about running Ankh of Mishra with this many fetchlands and Bob. probably it should be in here? I drafted it early
winter orb + elves good
elves + opposition good
vedalken shackles with only 3 islands is very loose but who cares it's shackles, you play shackles. nothing wrong with threads after all!
in my Cube this is the kind of black aggro deck I really like having Dark Ritual in. Wish I'd picked it up - would be fantastic here (the dream is obviously t1 deathrite + hymn)
I weeded the garden of my RNA changes a little; there are slightly fewer and a couple new ones. Probably these are the ones I'll add barring some strange new constructed role-player.
draft Sharzad here: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/4863
Winter Orb + Opposition really good. I should probably pick up an Eternal Masters Winter Orb for the untapped text.
Threads keys on cmc instead of power; I'd probably sideboard Shackles with 5 islands including fetches.
Drafting Sharzad, I first picked Counterspell, then took Clique. Went into white for Reflector Mage after that and followed it into a blue/ white control. I didn't end up with good removal or finishers, but Deal Broker might help there. Got a good suite of wraths and blockers.
UW Control from CubeTutor.com
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Drafting Kyoob now ...
I firstpicked Rishkar from a pretty flat pack, because he can be great in both, Tempo or Ramp decks. I followed it up with a Walking Ballista instead of commiting to blue for Amonkhet Nissa. Then I got some great green cards (Rofellos, STE, Tooth and Nail), before then the color disappeared for the rest of pack 1, which kinda forced me into red. I got paid off with nice packs 2&3, and Ramp seems to be the most natural way of drafting Gruul in this cube with Lumberjack and Savant giving more explosiveness too. I also got some extra tech with Sneack Attack and Wildfire. Smash them!
I firstpicked Rishkar from a pretty flat pack, because he can be great in both, Tempo or Ramp decks. I followed it up with a Walking Ballista instead of commiting to blue for Amonkhet Nissa. Then I got some great green cards (Rofellos, STE, Tooth and Nail), before then the color disappeared for the rest of pack 1, which kinda forced me into red. I got paid off with nice packs 2&3, and Ramp seems to be the most natural way of drafting Gruul in this cube with Lumberjack and Savant giving more explosiveness too. I also got some extra tech with Sneack Attack and Wildfire. Smash them!
Gruul Big or go home from CubeTutor.com
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Drafted Ravnic's casual cube.
First picked Captain of the Watch, got an early Nantuko Shade, and went after tokens and recursion where possible. Picked up Blood Artist and Carrion Feeder at the start of pack 2. I picked up a fair amount of incidental life gain, but stayed away from the life gain synergy cards largely because they seemed to hard to turn on and too weak in this deck.
First picked Captain of the Watch, got an early Nantuko Shade, and went after tokens and recursion where possible. Picked up Blood Artist and Carrion Feeder at the start of pack 2. I picked up a fair amount of incidental life gain, but stayed away from the life gain synergy cards largely because they seemed to hard to turn on and too weak in this deck.
B/W Disposable Bodies from CubeTutor.com
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Sweet and strong looking deck, well drafted. Good to see the secondary archetype for this color Kombination getting drafted too, after not too long ago having troubles giving even a single identity.
I have one question though, just out of interesting: what was the reason you decided not playing Dawn of Hope? That's a decent addition and I still try to get more feedback on it.
even a single identity.I have one question though, just out of interesting: what was the reason you decided not playing Dawn of Hope? That's a decent addition and I still try to get more feedback on it.
I thought Dawn of Hope required too much mana before it did anything, especially for a deck like this. It doesn't work as a draw engine if I don't have any life gain going, which means it's not a great recovery tool. Even when I do have life gain going, the mana investment is going to hurt badly, especially when many of my life gain effects cost mana. As a token generator, paying that rate for 1/1s is not going to keep up with a board. It seemed like a fine card for a slow control deck that puts a premium on holding up instants.
Thanks for the explanation!
I'm going on yours again now ...
P1P1 Control Magic over Prime Time, than Sower. Sweet Tempo. I want into blue/red tempo, but red dried up quickly and I got Rishkar, Experiment One, Plow Under and Edric in a row, setting me comfortably into green/blue. Maybe too comfortably, because I saw almost nothing in pack 2 to help with that early pressure I wanted to bring on. So I had to change gears, bug how? Maybe just get some bombs and walkers in different colors? Maybe go into ramp? Pack three at least have me some dorks and an Opposition, but I still didn't really got there with the tempo plan, that I dreamed of after the line of Rishkar, Experiment One, Plow Unser and Edric.
In the end though, I feel like I got a homogenic enough combination of busted cards to call this a good deck. So even in a draft, that goes pretty bad inbetween, you can still have a decent outcome and a deck, that you're not too unhappy about to play in the end!
I'm going on yours again now ...
P1P1 Control Magic over Prime Time, than Sower. Sweet Tempo. I want into blue/red tempo, but red dried up quickly and I got Rishkar, Experiment One, Plow Under and Edric in a row, setting me comfortably into green/blue. Maybe too comfortably, because I saw almost nothing in pack 2 to help with that early pressure I wanted to bring on. So I had to change gears, bug how? Maybe just get some bombs and walkers in different colors? Maybe go into ramp? Pack three at least have me some dorks and an Opposition, but I still didn't really got there with the tempo plan, that I dreamed of after the line of Rishkar, Experiment One, Plow Unser and Edric.
In the end though, I feel like I got a homogenic enough combination of busted cards to call this a good deck. So even in a draft, that goes pretty bad inbetween, you can still have a decent outcome and a deck, that you're not too unhappy about to play in the end!
GU/r Opposition from CubeTutor.com
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First pick Grizzly Fate because it seemed like the card with the highest ceiling. Second pick Honored Hydra looking to stay in color, thinking maybe I can pick up some self-mill. Third pick Harrow for feeding the graveyard and ramp into my first two picks. Fourth pick Millikin! Another perfect fit for my feed the graveyard and ramp plan. I finish the pack out dipping into black for top end and removal.
Pack two I first pick a Golgari Grave-Troll hoping the Golgari Signet will wheel. Unlikely. Second pick Living Death. I've never built around this card before but I might be on track.
Pack three consisted of filling in the curve with more top end and early picks. In the end I'm not sure if the creature quality warrants going for a Living Death or not. I passed one too many juicy reanimator picks during the first pack. Thoughts?
Here's my cube. http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/132098 It's my own take on a medium powered high synergy cube after creeping these forums for a couple months.
Pack two I first pick a Golgari Grave-Troll hoping the Golgari Signet will wheel. Unlikely. Second pick Living Death. I've never built around this card before but I might be on track.
Pack three consisted of filling in the curve with more top end and early picks. In the end I'm not sure if the creature quality warrants going for a Living Death or not. I passed one too many juicy reanimator picks during the first pack. Thoughts?
BG Dredge Death from CubeTutor.com
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Here's my cube. http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/132098 It's my own take on a medium powered high synergy cube after creeping these forums for a couple months.