The Penny Pincher Cube (360)

[Grillo_Parlante]

Needle specter is a black heroic card. At worst, he is essentially the same pressure as hippie, at best you can toss a cloak on him and really threaten some discard. Its just a card that is good on its own but becomes better with synergy, while hippie is just very good on its own.

Yeah heroic got phased out of blue. The problem was that its kind of a midrangy aggro mechanic, and not a real aggro mechanic in cube. You cant really run the one mana hoplites, because you dont have the effect density to make multiple threats huge quickly. You dont want to up the effect density too high, because than those decks are like combo decks, where they want a lot of library manipulation, which puts us in wu...

Just a very high maintence mechanic, and its so much easier on everyone to give high impact threats that only need to trigger once or twice to be worth it.

 

[Dom Harvey]

What do you think this Cube would look like if budget were no concern?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

You could make it singleton if budget wasn't a concern. The format would feel very different however.

I'm already running some more expensive cards, like ink-eyes, niv-mizet, savra, and grand arbiter. Other than that, you could do things like run six chromatic stars. There were some more cards I eliminated for budget reasons, just can't remember them :/ Grand Arbiter was the big one, but I've since added him in.

I was complaining about chromatic star prices before, when they were 1.25 a pop, but evidently they sky rocketed to about 4ish dollars per, and were at their height around 10. Thats why I have the shift towards terrarions.

>.>

 

[Dom Harvey]

To clarify: if you were designing a 'higher-powered' version of this around the bounceland theme without budget concerns, where would you start?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I've been toying around with that idea somewhat here, though I haven't been really satisfied with the results so far.

The big incentive for bouncelands is the ability to abuse the untap, so that was the starting point I took. Frantic search and snap are your best untap effects in blue. You also now have retreat to coralhelm, which can be part of an engine with voyaging satyr or magus of the candelabra. I have no idea how cubeable magus is outside of my environ though.

Rewind or turnabout and Prophet of kruphix should all be very good. The big higher power payoff card is Kiora, master of the depths.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

A few updates

Of course, goblin bushwhacker #2 will shortly become reckless bushwhacker.

I also cut the long underperforming goldnight commander with an elite scaleguard. I have no experience with scaleguard, but I wanted another counters lord, and he came recommended by several posters here. I was originally going to just run high sentinels of arashin, but it was pointed out to me that sentinels is often just a big flyer.

I'm also beginning to wonder if I was wrong to dismiss inscho's concerns that goblin bombardment is too strong, and should be a barrage of expendables. While I feel that its important to have an additional, low cc, sacrifice outlet in red, bombardment oftentimes is just a burn card, playing like a high power curse of the pierced heart. As much as I dislike having to pay mana for the effect, in a deck type that frequently is going to have its game plan hamstrung by having to keep up , maybe I do want to cut bombardment, leaving that sort of powerful burn effect to the multi-color stormbind.

Thoughts?

 

[Modin]

A few updates
I also cut the long underperforming goldnight commander with an elite scaleguard. I have no experience with scaleguard, but I wanted another counters lord, and he came recommended by several posters here. I was originally going to just run high sentinels of arashin, but it was pointed out to me that sentinels is often just a big flyer.

In my experience Scaleguard is very much a strong card, if not a game ender. The ability to keep the opponent from blocking effectively coupled with the hasty +2/+2 is the real deal. It's gonna be a strong white 5 drop with flicker potential.

I'm also beginning to wonder if I was wrong to dismiss inscho's concerns that goblin bombardment is too strong, and should be a barrage of expendables. While I feel that its important to have an additional, low cc, sacrifice outlet in red, bombardment oftentimes is just a burn card, playing like a high power curse of the pierced heart. As much as I dislike having to pay mana for the effect, in a deck type that frequently is going to have its game plan hamstrung by having to keep up , maybe I do want to cut bombardment, leaving that sort of powerful burn effect to the multi-color stormbind.

It's very hard to say. Imo Barrage should just have an activation cost of . I think it's reasonable to try it as it is though. The fact that there are still many synergistic cards that want you to sacc things should make it worthwhile.

 

[RavebornMuse]

I have to echo Modin's sentiments re: Barrage. Have you considered Blasting Station? Costing and being (typically) limited to firing off 1-3 damage a turn seems like a fine compromise, and it has cool combos with token-makers. It can lead to a little using-the-stack learning for newer players, but it's fantastic, relatively affordable, colourless, and feels more fair than Goblin Bombardment since you can't just easily pitch 4-6 dudes in a big shot.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I had considered it, and blasting station is actually fairly reasonable. My one complaint with it is that its a three drop. The main problem though is finding an artifact to cut

The most narrow one of them is myr retriever, with juggernaut being the most replaceable. I'm not sure how I feel about either of those prospective cuts though, or what I would fill that red slot with. Frenzied goblin, lust for war, and hissing iguanar all spring to mind. I've also been kind of wanting to run triskelion (because trike is awesome), but know I don't have the proper tools for it.

It just seems easier to run barrage to start with, rather than being really invasive.

 

[inscho]

I'm also beginning to wonder if I was wrong to dismiss inscho's concerns that goblin bombardment is too strong, and should be a barrage of expendables. While I feel that its important to have an additional, low cc, sacrifice outlet in red, bombardment oftentimes is just a burn card, playing like a high power curse of the pierced heart. As much as I dislike having to pay mana for the effect, in a deck type that frequently is going to have its game plan hamstrung by having to keep up , maybe I do want to cut bombardment, leaving that sort of powerful burn effect to the multi-color stormbind.

Thoughts?

Bombardment still strikes me as too savvy and hassle-free for my liking. I'd run Barrage of Expendables before I'd cut the effect entirely from red's pool. Barrage promotes a more aggressive strategy than Stormbind does, and aggro needs those incentives imo. There's also more combos with a sacrifice effect than a discard effect in your cube. You don't seem to be running all that many ways to get value out of Stormbind (although that probably keeps it from being too good here).

Downgrading Bombardment back to Barrage is almost certain for my cube as I'm unhappy with the creep in power from my last updates. I'm going back to the drawing board to identify the goals of my cube, as I'm feeling a little aimless when making adjustments, and often settle back into the more power-max methodologies that I'm accustomed to.

 

[inscho]

I had considered it, and blasting station is actually fairly reasonable. My one complaint with it is that its a three drop. The main problem though is finding an artifact to cut

The most narrow one of them is myr retriever, with juggernaut being the most replaceable. I'm not sure how I feel about either of those prospective cuts though, or what I would fill that red slot with. Frenzied goblin, lust for war, and hissing iguanar all spring to mind. I've also been kind of wanting to run triskelion (because trike is awesome), but know I don't have the proper tools for it.

It just seems easier to run barrage to start with, rather than being really invasive.

Lust for War is amazing, and often feels like a reasonable Sulfuric Vortex. A reasonable cut could be Magmatic Insight, as it's rarely more than an awkward/bad Forgotten Cave imo.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'll just run the barrage for now, and see how that goes.

Stormbind is more for slower, non-blue focused, decks, running slightly higher land counts and bouncelands. Thats also the kind of deck that magmatic insight tends to fit into. I don't have your cycling lands, unfortunately, so insight makes sense in the format.

 

[Kirblinx]

So, after all those Penny Pincher Grid Drafts I wanted to help contribute to your cube in some way from my own experiences. I know you got a decent amount of data from you watching all the games but I wanted to throw some more your way. I was wondering what I could talk about, as I wanted to talk about cards I avoided and what synergies they give to the cube, to see if my quick pick-analysation was correct in avoiding them.

This was a little too hard to do in the grid draft where so many cards were missing. It would be easier if they were last picks. Instead I am just going to write up some cards that I thought over or under performed from what I expected they would to what they actually did in gameplay.

Over-Performed:
Shine the Loyal Legions: I saw Ferret use it against me to help activate metalcraft and stabilize the board beside a Zulaport Cutthroat. During my games against your aggressive deck, it provided an early drop with inevitability. I could control up the board then pop it off whenever I needed to, either to save myself or start putting on pressure. This was even without any white spells. Only real downside is that is a bad topdeck late but I can see myself picking this card highly, even without white.
Zulaport Cuttroat: Blood Artist is nuts. This card doesn't scare me as much as that guy, but it still made my life a living hell whenever anyone played it against me. Just throwing down chump blockers helps keep you in the game. Tokens make it silly. Skeletal Vampire makes me want to cry.
Assault Strobe: Saw it several times in the grid draft and wondered what use it could be. The sorcery speed just makes it so underwhelming. Then I faced Modin. Those two combo kills showed my why Temur Battle Rage would be too strong in that spot. It suits all of the 'go tall' decks with most of the targets having some sort of built in evasion that helps you connect. At least it can be easily responded too. Then it leads to this interesting tension to go 'all-in' on the strobe.
Goblin Sharpshooter: This card pretty much wrecked me everytime it got played. There is no real comparison to this card. It just goes off and wrecks your board and your face. Is this the strongest card in the cube? Could possibly well be.
Thrashing Wumpus: It is just like the Sharpshooter, just costs a little more. I am used to Crypt Rats being good, fist-pickable card. This is head and shoulders above it. Just for the fact you can continually sweep the board for two damage. That is HUGE in this format. The 5 CMC is enough to make it not broken and just a great card.
Slaughter: Those slaughter locks you did on me made me think on my toes, which was a thrilling experience. The life loss is rather large, so you can't do it that often, so you use it as a leverage to get them in range of death.Buyback leads to repetitive game-states... Yeah right. (Please stop Capsizing me).
Flickerwisp: Who knew in a world full of bouncelands, playing this on turn 3 is an auto-win. Not I that is for sure.

EDIT SOME MORE IN:
Pestermite: The 'mite has a lot of love around the place. It does a lot more here than in your average cube. Untapping a Bouncland for a one mana guy is good. Tapping down the non-untappers (Galvanic Juggernaut, Goblin Sharpshooter) is great. All of it's usual tricks are jsut gravy.
Peregrine Drake: I kept wondering, what could I cast in the same turn as this? I always thought it was just the top of the curve and you could hold up counter magic. Oh, how I was so wrong. With your ramp into Rude Awakening, my dropping of Mulldrifter/Riftwing Cloudskate/Acidic Slime. The body wasn't irrelevant either (which I thought it would be). Premium pick that everyone else was probably aware of, that I was not. Until now.
Saproling Burst: I guess this was just being unfamiliar with the card. But it was bonkers when you cast it against me. 3 3/3's for 5 mana is nothing to sneeze at. It generally finished the game and I was scared whenever you played it.

Sure you probably knew most of this already. I'll get to the under-performers tomorrow after I have a sleep on it.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

That was a really good read. I like getting input from players outside of my group. Some of those plays you guys were doing were firsts for me to see. No one has ever made that flickerwisp play over here, for example, I've never had someone o-ring a journey to nowhere, and using rally as removal was pretty novel too.

Pestermite really is amazing, and i.m.o is one of the best, if not the best, designed magic card of all time. I've reached a point where I like it even better than vendilion clique in that regard, and its especially tasty in this cube. It really just does everything.

Double strike is a great ability, because it gives combo play to creature decks. You have to be very picky with the ability though, and I find that instant speed sources of double strike aren't fun, since there is no way to play around them. There is another layer of interaction, as well, with the double strike plays, which modin had in his deck. Emerge unscathed, and the other temp protection or hexproof effects, can be used in response to removal to create evasion and/or protect the queen on the decisive turn. Just wait until you see the terror that is fabled hero in action The quickest way to die in this cube is to point removal at fabled hero on the attack step.

If you like peregrine drake, I can't wait for you to see a true ramp deck in action, or god forbid if someone assembles the combo deck. No one has done it since I ran the table with it, so long ago, and it would be interesting to see if the upgraded disruption suite can contain it.

There were a few very strong interactions you didn't get to see. Jor kadeen is an outright bomb in the metalcraft deck that never really had a chance to come online, nor did you get to see reactive blink plays to protect the splicer lords (Modin did too good of a job playing around it). The splicer decks most powerful play, also didn't play out: running master splicer onto a board to activate rusted relic--instant 11 power. Another, very subtle interaction that would have been nice to see, is bouncing ninja pairs off of each other in response to removal.

I also wish you could have seen darkblast in action, which is maybe my favorite removal spell in the cube. You got a pretty good introduction to the power of ping effects like goblin sharpshooter and death spark. Darkblast is similarly brutal, but powers an entire deck.

As for most powerful cards, I think skeletal vampire is probably the most powerful, raw card, in the cube. It has a lot of interactions that push it over the top. Another very strong card that didn't come up is galepowder mage.

However, the truth is, the most powerful cards in the cube i.m.o are all synergy cards, whose ceiling far outstrips anything the individually powerful cards are capable of. All of the untappers are just gas in this format, as you discovered with the drake. If you thought that card felt good, imagine what its like resolving frantic search, which both ramps (at instant speed), and draws you into more cards to ramp out. And thats not even getting into the plays where you are deceptively tapping your mana to hide counter interactions.

Though when building towards that raw power, you have to remember that excessive bounceland density makes you vulnerable on another axis, both in awkward draws, and from the hate cards that want to convert the build up to those late game big mana plays into a crippling tempo advantage for them.

Anyways, since I was making tiny changes anyways, I swapped out the myr retriever, which has historically been an under performer due to limited density of raw artifacts and over dependence on sacrifice outlets, for a chronomaton. Chronomaton has been on my radar for a long time: it gets buffed by both tribal lords (counter and splicer), can be fetched by trinket mage, and recurred by auriok salvagers. Should be strong.

Edit: One thing I forgot to add, from watching the games, it occurred to me how absurdly good the scry lands are. I wonder if there isn't an entire family of decks that I've over looked, that revolve around combining scry lands with bouncelands to build virtual preordains into the mana base, transforming it into a shifting tool.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

That Chronomaton add looks great!

 

[Chriskool]

Edit: One thing I forgot to add, from watching the games, it occurred to me how absurdly good the scry lands are. I wonder if there isn't an entire family of decks that I've over looked, that revolve around combining scry lands with bouncelands to build virtual preordains into the mana base, transforming it into a shifting tool.

I have found the scry lands worth playing in the MTGO Vintage cube even if they provided solely one color. The card selection they provide is much like divining top.

I would love to see them at uncommon (probably just a set of 5) in a retail format. Imagine RTR/GTC/DGM if the gates also scryed. :eek:

 

[whydirt]

I'm considering a U/B ninjas package for my cube, but I'm worried that the bounce and Dark Banishing ones will lead to bad experiences for newer players on the receiving end or overly repetitive gameplay. The draw and discard effect ones seem more fair since they don't impact the board state. It looks like you have very few ways to give them evasion, which might help reduce their ability to take over the game.

Either way, could you talk a little bit about them and how they've worked for you?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

They're great, and I would run them all. There are few mechanics more fun than ninjutsu, and I suspect your new players will have a lot of fun with them.

The ninjas tend to be tempo negative on their own, so they want a certain Density of evasive 2-3 CC ETB creatures to generate value with. In black and blue I run:



They also work pretty well with familiars, token makers (which was the plan for the R/B deck I posted), and any other ETB creature they can find, but its important they have some core of evasive ETB threats.

There was a point where I was running a much more powerful black removal top end, and the UB ninja deck was pretty oppressive than (in some matchups), since it could run a tempo generation plan into top shelf black removal, which was pretty hard to get out from under for the more square shaped white decks.

 

[whydirt]

Did you ever test Gods Willing or Battlewise Valor in your mix of combat tricks in place of/addition to what you're currently running? I figure the scry could come in handy for to keep gas running coming in the mid-late game, but obviously the rebound and lifelink riders on Emerge Unscathed and Moment of Heroism provide value in their own way. Overall, I'm just curious how you ended up with the combat trick package you landed on.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Did you ever test Gods Willing or Battlewise Valor in your mix of combat tricks tin place of/addition to what you're currently running? I figure the scry could come in handy for to keep gas running coming in the mid-late game, but obviously the rebound and lifelink riders on Emerge Unscathed and Moment of Heroism provide value in their own way. Overall, just curious how you ended up with the combat trick package you landed on.

Lets lay out the white combat trick package first:





Criteria for inclusions were:
1. Provides disruption, supporting protect the queen strategies
2. Provides evasion
3. Works with heroic
4. Reduces negative variance

I have a pretty good post here, that explains some of the development of that section. Moment of heroism is for the life gain, and battle mastery was to provide another source of sorcery speed double strike for the vertical growth decks.

Originally, I had gods willing in the cube, but it was cut both for space reasons, and because I felt it was too efficient. Temp. proc. cards are basically like narrow counterspells, and I feel that they should generally be 2 mana, so as to induce meaningful sequencing decisions, and create the possibility of an opponent playing around that disruption. I already have apostle's blessing, which is filling a very similar role to gods willing, but interacts interestingly with the cube's artifact sub theme. It would just be redundant to have both, and apostle's blessing does something very unique.

Battlewise valor just doesn't do enough. If I were to add another combat trick, it would be artful maneuver, due to the rebound, but its unlikely I would do so in the white section. I would rather run prey's vengeance, but again, unlikely, since I want a certain density of aura buffs in green to work with the power buffed evasion creatures.

 

[kevthewalker]

Lets lay out the white combat trick package first:

Does the option to cost 1 mana + 2 life make blessing that much better than
?
Barrier is always 2 mana but protects other things as well, but I have yet to see it as an include.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I honestly didn't know barrier existed.

Right now I would be inclined to stick with blessing, because theres nothing broken that needs fixing.

Its possible that temp protection effects, priced at two mana without the draw of any extra interactions, would be substantially worse picks; and it seems like a card I would run if I thought apostle's blessing needed to be downgraded, which is currently not the case.

 

[whydirt]

Is Swarm of Bloodflies over Scavenger Drake to trigger up counter-based anthem effects immediately? Just like the bigger starting body? Bit of both?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Both. The larger starting body is very relevant, and big square cards without ETBs need to promise a lot of power to make the cut.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

So, per conversations, the following changes occured:

Out



In




With the speed of the format, tiger claws is just too expensive for too little to hold mana up for. I wanted something that could stick to a target, supporting the power unbreakability creatures, yet could function as a combat trick. Kirblinx reminded me of hunger of the howlpack is the perfect card, and it really is.

Everyone hates triad of fates, everyone, and I've been looking for a replacement for a while. Going to try selenia, who is removal resistant, but can be beaten on tempo. Her competition was sentry of the underworld.

Isamaru just kind of feels right. There is no just purely efficient aggro 1 drop, and isamaru fills that role. Leonin squire is a bit too narrow, due to the insufficient artifact density. Same issue with myr retriever.

The barrage of expendables is a balance downgrade, much like the switch from blood artist to zulaport cutthroat.

I got to play chronomaton in tonights draft, and it was amazing. I ran it along side a maul splicer; at one point it got into a growth contest with an opposing lumberknot, which was super interesting.