The Grave Cube (360 cards, thematic cube)

[VincePendrell]

I had the idea of making this Cube a little after I joined this community and had thought about it ever since. Last week I got confirmation that I will be spending the next couple of years in Denmark studing for my masters degree, so I decided to rush this list and finally put it on paper to play with it, since I might be leaving Brazil in two months.

My idea for this cube is to make a draft environment that has full focus on graveyard interactions. Mill, self-mill, sacrifice and discard are my main focuses. The more I thought about cards I wanted to include, more some themes became prevalent as well, like Lands, Storm and Spell Matters. I also realized that white would have so few contributions that I would need a another strong theme to work with, so I ditched white entirely.

My preliminary list is here on Google Docs and is open for comments from anyone. Any suggestion is welcome. At first glance, I believe the list might be way too low on removal and artifact removal and would love suggestions on cuts and inclusions.

__________________________________

List is now on CubeTutor, with some sample decks (that might or might not be bad).
Don't forget to register before you draft to save the decklists!

 

[Eric Chan]

This looks awesome. I love that I have to look up what half of the cards do! Any cube that makes Gifts Ungiven even better has got to be doing something right.

In blue, are filtering spells like Compulsive Research and Thirst for Knowledge a possibility? Along with looters, like plain ol' Merfolk Looter? Or is the theme of blue more about straight mill?

No white makes me sad that Unburial Rites won't get any face time, because that seems like the perfect card in this type of cube.

For the spells matter theme, have you thought about including Runechanter's Pike? Or maybe even Delver of Secrets in blue?

I normally don't like Izzet Charm, but in a graveyard-themed cube, it seems much better than usual.

I'm not entirely convinced that Storm fits any better in this themed cube than in any other cube. But I admit I could be wrong on this point.

Anyways, these are just all very minor suggestions or critiques. I think the overall idea is fantastic, and I can't wait to hear reports about how it plays out. Hope you can keep us posted!

 

[LordOfTexas]

Funny, I've been working on a custom cube with similar themes recently as well - mine is not as all-in on the graveyard, but does have a lot of similar interactions, and we both came across similar tech (River Kelpie!) My list is still not completely filled out, but I'll post a link for comparison once I have one.

One suggestion I do have - were Bloodghast and Vengevine purposely excluded? For my cube at least, they were slam dunk inclusions.

 

[Eric Chan]

Dredgevine does seem like a natural place to take a cube with this theme. Reassembling Skeleton isn't embarrassing, either.

 

[VincePendrell]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, guys! On to some answers:

This looks awesome. I love that I have to look up what half of the cards do! Any cube that makes Gifts Ungiven even better has got to be doing something right.

In blue, are filtering spells like Compulsive Research and Thirst for Knowledge a possibility? Along with looters, like plain ol' Merfolk Looter? Or is the theme of blue more about straight mill?

No white makes me sad that Unburial Rites won't get any face time, because that seems like the perfect card in this type of cube.

For the spells matter theme, have you thought about including Runechanter's Pike? Or maybe even Delver of Secrets in blue?

I normally don't like Izzet Charm, but in a graveyard-themed cube, it seems much better than usual.

I'm not entirely convinced that Storm fits any better in this themed cube than in any other cube. But I admit I could be wrong on this point.

Anyways, these are just all very minor suggestions or critiques. I think the overall idea is fantastic, and I can't wait to hear reports about how it plays out. Hope you can keep us posted!

Most of the blue filter cards got out because I didn't had much room for anything else, but I'll try and make room for some more. I just replaced Ponder with Careful Study and I'm pondering if I'd rather have Looter il-Kor or any other passive Looter in that slot.

Yeah, Unburial is among one of the white cards that I'll regret I won't be playing, among Reveillark, Knight of the Reliquary and Angel of Serenity.

Storm is actually seems like an unnusual mechanic, but I got the idea from an old commander deck that I built that abused Burning Vengeance and River Kelpie by casting multiple Flame Jab or Raven's Crime from a graveyard. The amount of spells that were possible to be chained in a turn was big enough that I included spell-matters cards like Talrand and Guttersnipe in that list (after all, every land you ever draw is another 1cc spell). Storm is just another step into that direction.

I hadn't remembered of any of your other suggestions when putting the list together, so I'll note them next to my list and see what I can make room for. I'm also taking a look on Dredgevine lists to see what else I can play with

Funny, I've been working on a custom cube with similar themes recently as well - mine is not as all-in on the graveyard, but does have a lot of similar interactions, and we both came across similar tech (River Kelpie!) My list is still not completely filled out, but I'll post a link for comparison once I have one.

One suggestion I do have - were Bloodghast and Vengevine purposely excluded? For my cube at least, they were slam dunk inclusions.

I'd love to see other grave-related list to see where we are taking our cubes!

Most of the grave-related tech I have in my list came from looking for cards to play in commander decks. I guess the list has material from about 6 commander decklists I built in the past. My friends often say that I play dirty by abusing graveyard strategies as much as possible, especially playing Mental Magic, where I get to play All Suns' Dawn pretty much every game.

On the suggestions, I already had Vengevine in my list, but I overlooked Bloodghast, so I found him some room! (though I just remembered that Nether Traitor exists and he'll most likely remains out).



EDIT: Just added the list to cubetutor and linked in the first post. Draft away!

 

[Chris Taylor]

I like Nether traitor over reassembling skeleton

 

[VincePendrell]

Hmm, I'm not very sure I want Nether Traitor in. He's much harder to cast and abuse than Reassembling Skeleton. Plus he can't block profitably, and from what I've seen in my CubeTutor drafts so far, the Grave Cube might be much faster than expected, so having a card that plays better in control than aggro is more appetizing right now.

Also, does anyone have any opinion on grave hate on this cube? Currently there are 7 of those cards in my list (Scavenging Ooze, Loaming Shaman, Nezumi Graverobber, Withered Wretch, Memory's Journey, Deathrite Shaman and The Mimeoplasm).

 

[Eric Chan]

You got most of the common ones. Relic of Progenitus is a bit boring, but has good utility. Gaea's Blessing, or Primal Command? Was gonna suggest Stonecloaker before I forgot you don't run white!

 

[Spiderdoofus]

Also, does anyone have any opinion on grave hate on this cube? Currently there are 7 of those cards in my list (Scavenging Ooze, Loaming Shaman, Nezumi Graverobber, Withered Wretch, Memory's Journey, Deathrite Shaman and The Mimeoplasm).

Serene Remembrance is another possibility. I think Cremate and Vile Rebirth are both cool.

Some other suggestions:
Logic Knot is a potential card for blue. Tortured Existence is one of my favorite black cards, maybe it'd be a good fit here.

It seems like you've excluded flashback and threshold as mechanics. Was that deliberate? You might also consider madness and hellbent. I think all these mechanics can help the non-black and green colors, which don't have as much graveyard interaction.

 

[VincePendrell]

All suggestions are pretty neat. I'm particularly interested in Primal Command and Tortured Existence (feels like Survival of the Fittest in this cube ). Not sure what to take out, though.

Seems like I forgot that I had Cremate in already. Either way, I've switched it to Vile Rebirth as it looks like its closer to my themes (zombies is supported in black). I'll keep these suggestions for grave hate around for when I finally put the list together and play with it. I'll try keeping distance from Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt and similar 'remove entire graves' card as it might become too rewarding for people playing too off-theme (maybe I'll keep away from Primal Command for a while at first).

It seems like you've excluded flashback and threshold as mechanics. Was that deliberate? You might also consider madness and hellbent. I think all these mechanics can help the non-black and green colors, which don't have as much graveyard interaction.

Actually, I tried to include as many flashback and threshhold cards I as remembered and felt like would play nicely inside my themes. Problem is that the number is not so big and both need enablers to work as primary themes that are simply nonexistant for most colors (there are, for instance, very few "discard a norandom card:do something" red cards with a competitive mana cost). Flashback can actually be a great tool in a UR deck because of Burning Vengeance, River Kelpie and Secrets of the Dead, but even then, Flame Jab and Raven's Crime make for easier to abuse cards in this given archetype.

As for the other mechanics, I included some madness cards in every color. I wanted to make it a red subtheme, but the enablers simply weren't there, so it became very minor (might work for aggressive RG decks though). I do have one Hellbent card in Blood Scrivener, but none of the other ones enticed me.

If you have some suggestion for working with these themes that I might have overlooked, I'd be glad to try and include them!

 

[Spiderdoofus]

I think madness is also enabled by the host of blue draw X, discard Y cards (e.g., Careful Consideration).

It looks like you don't do singleton, so I would bump Burning Vengeance to 2 copies. Here are the madness, flashback, discard, hellbent stuff I was thinking of for red.
Red


Blast from the Past
Firebolt
Fiery Temper
Geistflame
Reckless Charge
Kris Mage
Gambit
Devastating Dreams
Lightning Surge
Chandra Ablaze
Flayer of the Hatebound
Pyreheart Wolf
Hound of Griselbrand
Rakdos Pit Dragon
Anger
Ingot Chewer
Pardic Arsonist
Wheel of Fortune
Arc Mage
Chandra's Phoenix
Rummaging Goblin


Might be easier to just share the preliminary list I made. I tried uploading it to this post, so hopefully that would work. It has some notes about all the mechanics I looked at.

I also think Raven's Crime is bad in limited. It is only really powerful with something like Life from the Loam or Burning Vengeance otherwise it's fairly easy to hold lands up to it. It's doubly weak in an environment where discarding stuff is not always bad, and can even be helpful.

 

[VincePendrell]

Hmm...those are all great suggestions. I have some of those up already and I'll see what I can get into my list. Just wished more grave-oriented red cards were costed 2 instead of 3.

I don't really want more than two copies of Burning Vengeance right now. It is a good build-around card and any deck that already has Retrace+LftL can pick it late in the draft and use accordingly, but if I were to add it now, I would either have to remove the other red enchantments that support other themes in red (Seismic Assault for land-oriented and Furnace Celebration for artifacts/sacrifice) or throw my curve off on the 3 mana department.

As for Raven's Crime, you are probably right. I'm keeping one copy though because it can help you set up your own madness/flashback/dredge tricks. I also have a little discard thing going on with Liliana's Caress , Megrim and The Rack (I figured that if discarding cards is something everyone would like to do, maybe a strategy punishing this would be interesting to have available).