The Penny Pincher Cube (360)

Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Repeal seems sweet with all the tokens running around.

I noticed no reveiklark, and he (it?) too seems sweet with the splicers, and the blink! Too stronk?
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Too stronk. Ghostly flicker is already degenerate enough, lol.

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Also, have to remember a few more cards for the sidelines:



If I learned anything from last week, its that cheap value cantrips like phyrexian rager feel a lot better when you are trying to piece together a game winning puzzle. Would not mind having more.

I kind of want to increase the number of degenerate combo elves in the cube, but deep down know what a horrible mistake that would be.
 
Chriskool

Chriskool

To fight blink power, you could downgrade Momentary Blink to:


You could also add more things like Emancipation Angel or ninjas that require mana investment to gain the ETB value again over some blink spells:


I had great success weakening my fantasy sets to foster more interesting interaction and drafting; I like the trend to cut down on multiples that are overperforming.

If you add blink effects that can target opposing creatures, flagbearers like Coalition Honor Guard/Standard Bearer could add some interplay.

RE: tribal. I have found most success in supporting it only moderately with cards that hold their own and a few cards that get better given the tribe assembled. Not big on Distant Melody and other effects that require a preponderance to be playable. It also sucks that some cards don't have printings with relevant creature types... (grrr, human minion Braids, Cabal Minion).
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
hmmm...these are some good ideas.

Otherworldly journey really jumps out at me as a powerful card. Not only does it interact with the other +1 +1 counter cards, but it can target any creature. I can see that leading to all sorts of interesting interactions. Voyager staff also seems like a reasonable inclusion, opening up value blink to other colors, bolstering artifacts, but not being quite as strong a combat trick.

I think most of those bounce cards have the potential to be played. Jeskai barricade jumps out, as I want to cut one sunscape familiar, but want another control card to take its place. It seems like it has a lot of applications as a counter, fog, value bounce, and blocker.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
So, after toying around with it, cutting and adding cards based on suggestions, here are all of the cuts/inclusions:

Out





In





Big seat warmer on the bench is hit // run, which I kind of would like to have to add more definition to gruul. Right now, however, I am trying tymaret.

In other news, after the purges, Rasmus goes and drafts this ominous deck:

Bant Golem Control from CubeTutor.com











Have...have I created a monster? I might have to take chris' suggestions on cards to punish bouncelands more seriously. Or find some other way to disrupt combo. Though it is nice to see trinket mage looking amazing for once.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Glad to see I made a blip on the radar. From what I can see, without having played the cube, is that I've got some ramp and a very slight change of comboing out? And some splicers to make it a little tighter. Can you shed some light particularly what it is that you are concerned about? Is it just the risk of doing a bunch of bounceland untap shenanigans that just ends up being very solitaire? (I'd love to have played the deck, though!)
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
When I first looked at it, I think I had your initial reaction that it looks a bit unfocused, and thats probably because of the green (but in retrospect, you could make a case for fertile ground).

I figured you could win games off of technical ability. I've seen decks similar to this do very well, though they are difficult to pilot. Basically, you want to stall in the midgame, and than start to pull ahead off of value plays using blink and archaeomancers.

Plus you have a bunch of inheriently broken cards: cloud of faeries and frantic search.

And you have one of the strongest value cards in the cube...the only remaining copy of ghostly flicker...

...and, hey, is that a tutor chain to get your simic growth chamber: trinket mage->expedition map->simic growth chamber?

and he has two splicers to stall the midgame and act as kill conditions in the event he puts together the combo.

This is starting to look pretty good.

You even have a remember the fallen to get cloud of faeries back in the event it gets instant speed nuked. A sunscape familiar to slow the game and act as a cost reducer. I thought not having a tutor effect like insidious dreams might be a problem (and it is), but with some skillfull play you can get there. With double archaeomancers, a frantic search, and a ponder, if the game slows you can start shifting through your deck looking for combo pieces.

You can even make a case for fertile ground, on the basis that it acts as a second blue producing "bounceland" as far the combo is concerned.

I think voyaging satry and thought scour, at the least, should go.

The deck has some very scary lines though, fused nicely into a solid value gameplan.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Hm. Very insightful! I actually think this format is a bit tricky, thanks to the combo esque directions you can take a deck. Something that you don't often see in other draft formats. Satyr probably doesn't pull it's weight I agree. Though scour was just there as a way to get to see more cards. Maybe it's a do nothing.

I could probably play a bodyguard to get some more insurance
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
My concern was more that it could mill valuable pieces and set your back, your card quality is just so high I'm not sure you need it.

Though it probably wouldn't hurt you too badly in all but the worst scenarios: remember the fallen gets back a milled cloud of faeries, and archaeomancer gets back milled remember the fallen, ghostly flicker, or frantic search. Its just a little awkward if you have to spend a turn or two having to get those cards back.

There are decks though where thought scour would be great to have: UB decks running lim-dul's vault, or some of the green decks running reclaim/noxious revival. Good card to board in at least.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
So, some more interesting and strange decks last night.

15 Land Ramp










Ah, cloud of faeries. When you aren't enabling degenerate combos, here you are enabling sudden explosive bursts of mana, generating 7-8 mana off of a handful of lands. In the event that the cloud of faeries, voyaging satyr, sunscape familiar mass mana generating plan right isn't right for the board state, you can always turn to trinket mage to suit up the cloud of faeries and beat down from the air.

Voyaging satyr was also really fun with bouncelands, since you can mask your total mana output and really get people. Untapping lands to pay for mana leak or getting someone with a tapped quicksand feels great.

Trinket mage is a weird card in the sense that it either wants a very low power enviroment or very high power environments. It was really great here, allowing all sorts of intricate plays, drawing from a tool box that gave you access to removal, bounce, color fixing, cantriping, or equipment.

Lumberknot, however, continues to establish himself a threat to be reckoned with, this time teaming up with evincar's justice to grow to obscene proportions.

Vault Control










This was a fun deck, with tons of decisions to it. Probably the funniest game was where he had to discard turn 2 because of the rot farm. He decides to discard his rancor. Later on in the game he gets lumberknot up to 12/12, but can't make the kill because of the decision he made on turn 2, and than proceeds to almost lose the game because of it. He pulled through though off of a briarhorn fueled fallen angelattack.

The deck was a toolbox deck, with lots of value removal and ways to reuse that removal. Combined with credible pressure in the form of lumberknot, fallen angel, and kessig cagebreakers, you had a lot of control to craft the game, if you were smart enough to see the right plays from the myriad number of vault, archaeomancer, and mneominc wall targets.

There isn't much in the way of tweeks I would like to make to the cube. Maybe run a couple icy manipulator type effects to tap down bouncelands, and find 1-2 more decent artifact sac. outlets. The most extreme change left to make would be banning ghostly flicker completly, if it comes to that.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Oh! What's the first one? Also I will totally use this as a reference in case someone asks me about building a cube with low budget and/or with the bounce lands. Theres a lot going on in this cube, and from what I can tell theres some high levels of substance and depth for being so close to retail draft.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist



With rotation on these not a terrible long time away, are they still up for considerations as inclusions? Running one Kahn-Land and one Temple for each color pair? I remember you speaking fondly of them when you started sketching up ideas for how the cube mana base would interact with itself, and I think they'd be a great "selling point" for the cube.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
No draft this week! So no sweet lists atm.

Yeah, I am planning on going with a split of 1 khan land and 1 temple for each color pair. Being able to bounce and replay those with bouncelands looks great, and they will help smooth out draws even more.

Here are the upcoming changes btw

Out



In



With the bouncelands (and to a lesser extent the gold section) providing so much definition to the draft, I can really push card flexibility. So satry wayfinder and commune get replaced with ambush viper and krosan tusker: cards that still add to the graveyard, but have broader applications.

The gold section is pretty composite, so I'm just toying around with different nudge cards. We'll see if the over run clause of hit // run can push some people into sweet gruul decks.

Some of the other effects were a bit redundant, so I want to cut those to make room for cards that will add more variety to the draft or better define certain strategic axes. Hence gurmag angler for graveyard decks. Trying jeskai barricade, since it seems like a tactically rich card, but not sure if it will pass muster.

Chris pointed out I'm a bit light on artifact sac. outlets, so I've also been in the market for some. Trading post looks like fun durdles for control decks. Core can kind of fit in anywhere. I want some cheap aggressive ones, and am trying atog and rebirth, though both might be too narrow. Sadly, its hard to find impactful but flexible artifact sac. outlets for an aggressive deck (besides piston sledge).

This is how the bench is looking:




Glissa and hoard-smelter are kind of cute because they can eat your own wellsprings and stars, opposing artifacts, or just be reasonable creatures in their own right. Ratchet bomb on 2 can also clear out your own wellsprings while doubling up as a wrath. Obzedat's aid, because archaeomancer is such a good card, and it would be neat to see B/W go down a similar road. The Icy and ring I would like to add, to interact with opposing bouncelands, but there are no artifacts I want to cut.
 
Chriskool

Chriskool

Oh no, I forgot the reinstall my form history plugin and just closed a few paragraph long response... :( sorry that this one will be much less polished.



Welder is cheap now, and offers aggro artifacts card adv for low-to-no mana (as well as recycles threats)!
Mechanics is something I've been considering for the Scars fantasy set, but ultimately, I feel like that set would rather have Brimstone Mage as a pinger. The 1/1 body hurts, but 2 damage repeatedly (and for no mana) is interesting.
Artillerize and Magmaw offer some overlap with Rakdos sac (and could be curve-toppers in art aggro).

It's a little weird to think about improving the art sac theme, though, with split of Chrome Spheres and Stars (and Sextant), in addition to considering unspectacular-when-in-a-vacuum cards. A few other art-sac cogs, like Panic Spellbomb and Nihil Spellbomb, have some application in your cube and would give more fuel to the fire, but they are very underwhelming to draft without synergy upside. Also, I have been unimpressed with Myr Retriever in my set and am moving to Myr Sire as an artifact Mogg War Marshal of sorts. Overall, I am concerned that 8ish artifacts that are yearning to die for value isn't enough to incentivize drafting Atog-style cards; they aren't even the most impressive with about 33% of cards being artifacts.

I am wondering:

Is it worth exploring this theme, and at what cost? (Looking for cards that sacrificing permanents or arts+other seems like the best way to find value for the Wellsprings. However, I could imagine looking at Master's Call/Splicers and thinking of artifact/sac ways to support them.)

How has Embersmith and co. performed?

Also, how have the Zendikar Block ETBT lands like Teetering Peaks been for drafters? If you aren't wild about them, they could be transitioned into artifacts.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I don't want to go too deep into artifact sacrifice as a theme, but I do feel like their should be slightly more cards that can create value from the wellsprings. The stars and spheres are positioned pretty well, and generally you aren't going to want to be sacrificing those to draw a card (I don't think). Everytime they get played they tend to be used very quickly to either color fix, or smooth out ones draws.

I'm more interested in adding a little more play to ichor and mycosynth wellspring. Pre-patch, I have etherum astrolabe, perilous research, ghostly flicker, piston sledge, and throne of geth to interact with them. Astrolabe kind of dosen't count, because its a nudge card, and throne of geth meshes poorly as the only deck that would want that affect is a heroic deck, which dosen't want a do-nothing artifact. Because I cut two ghostly flickers, I have been running really 3 cards total in the cube that can get value from the wellsprings. Those cuts, throne underperforming, and astrolabe being multi-color, are why I think I a running a little light on the effect.

Trading post, astrolabe, perilous research, phyrexia's core and ghostly flicker are a nice lineup for control decks, but I am still stuck with just piston sledge for aggro (though piston sledge has been great). I'm a little nervous about cards like shrapnal blast and atog, because they do nothing without artifacts. I hadn't considered goblin welder, but it looks really good. It could be run in more aggressive decks, or more midrange R/W decks looking to abuse auriok salvagers. Orcish mechanics is interesting as well, and might just be good enough to squeeze in.

I have a pretty casual playgroup, so you could give them the best aggro cards in the world, and they will still try to find a way to play midrange and control. Magmaw is something I should keep on the radar though, especially since it works so well with aggressive token strategies.
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The smiths vary a lot in value. Embersmith has been very good, myrsmith has been a solid roleplayer, lifesmith has been pretty lackluster. Riddlesmith and painsmith haven't come up yet, the former not being very surprising though. There is still that stereotype that blue is a poor aggressive color, and when my players see a 2 power blue creature for 2, they tend to stray away. It will take a little while for that to change. Not sure whats up with painsmith as he has been in the draft.

The Zendikar ETBT lands have been really cool. Getting 2-3 uses out of something like Sejiri steppe is awesome. Last week I was keeping myself alive with my army of plant tokens.

I might end up making the same swap that you are with myr retriever.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

I'm sad to see satyr wayfinder go, that card is so good.
I've just added magmaw into my list, I think there will be obvious applications here.
Gurmag angler looks great here (bet he wishes his friend wayfarer was still here). Your removes look really good generally.
I understand your reasons for benching glassdust hulk, but I think it would be so good here!
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Glassdust is going to get his moment in the sun eventually. One of the nice things about handling the multi-color section that way, is that most of those cards aren't "locks" and I kind rotate them in and out as I think will keep things fresh.

So here is the thing with wayfinder (and maybe I am being hasty to cut him). But what I've been finding, is that non-G/B decks, generally don't want him.

One of the issues with self-mill mechanics, is persuading players that trading speculative draws to stock your yard is worthwhile, and I am not sure this list does that very well. If you mill a valuable card, its probably just going to be stuck in the graveyard, and with so much cycling and cantriping as alternate draw smoothers, why take the risk? Commune had similar problems.

Tusker is kind of a green divination that also adds to graveyard count, and can work as a lategame play, making him much more flexible, though not as good as addressing mana screw instances.

I'm open to feedback though, as I rather like wayfinder as well.

I think sire may eventually replace myr retriever.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
So, I had sometime to look over the decks that people have been drafting, and to answer one of chris' questions from before, I would say UW is over represented, and GR and BW are underrepresented. GB and BUG had some decks, there was 1 GR deck (a stompy deck) and 0 BW decks.

I don't want to push too much to prop up underrepresented combinations: I feel like GR is just too far removed from all of the interesting axes of the cube.

BW has a few interesting possibilities though:




Triad brings blink into BW, and Obzedat's aid plays off of the success that archaeomancer has had. There is also Blind hunter, but I am just not sold on that card yet...I could also run some straight value cards like culling sun, but that seems boring.

Gruul...I have no great ideas :rolleyes:

I think it ideally would want to be the disruptive "hate color" against the rest of the cube, but that seems a bit unwieldy as a deck coming together during actual draft. The other possibility would be to maybe tie it into GB strategically with a card like stormbind. Not really sure how it should be positioned though.

Some of the draft statistics are really weird. I cannot imagine a world where quirion ranger should be in the bottom picks.
 
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