The Penny Pincher Cube (360)

Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah bronzebeak moa hasn't really been amazing, but I have one drafter here that is obsessed with it, so i've kept it in. Originally, it was supposed to be a junction point for wide and tall aggressive decks, much like anax and cymede, but while that card has been amazing, this card has not. Its the lack of trample that really limits it.

I don't know why I hadn't run javelineers before, the card fits great. Blast is both anti-splicer tech, and anti-familiar tech. I've been wanting an instant speed sweeper to recreate the feel of electrickery in pauper, and this seems on point.

On the topic of removal, I've also been toying with the idea of roast. I could not quite find enough space for nameless inversion, but I think some more instant speed removal that hit cloud of faeries would be good. While the general powering up of certain aspects of the cube (temur sabertooth what am I thinking?) the boggart->nameless inversion interaction shouldn't be too bad.

The hate seed was part of my campaign to create gruul themes, but it hasn't really panned out yet. People keep on wanting to put it into 3 color decks, when its essentially a R/G devotion card, so I don't know.

Now that I think about it, artisan is probably just a really good ramp target. It has an ETB ability if something happens to it, and even with bouncelands 9 mana is something you want a more specialized ramp deck for.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Thats probably way better. It fits much the same niche, but works better with both green's outlast crew, and white's token makers.

Also, I think you were going to run memnarch because you already have a copy? If you are ok with running some higher $$ cards, grand arbiter augustin iv is a natural fit in the cube, as a sort of super familiar.

I think I could probably cut painsmith for nameless inversion? The artifact theme has really struggled to get into black, even though painsmith is one of the strongest smith effects. I'm also wondering if I shouldn't run a second spikeshot elder, or a spikeshot goblin to help solidify gruul more.
 
Modin

Modin

Yeah, I think I'll be running Memnarch, can't resist the sweetness! Black sure is in a somewhat awkward position regarding artifact themes in this cube. I'm not even sure Etherium Astrolabe is a thing. Although there are some cards that you could run, I just think that they don't interact well with the other black cards as black doesn't care too much about artifacts and some of them require quite a density of artifacts.

On the question of Spikeshot Elder vs. Spikeshot Goblin I think th Elder lends itself more to big mana strategies as it can be activated more often the more mana you have access to, while the Goblin seems to provide boardcontrol/a combat independent clock for decks that want to develop their board on the same turn. That being said, Spikeshot Elder interacts much better with combat tricks and pump spells as he can have pseudo double strike and shoot blockers in combat.

Browsing through my collection I've come across Epochrasite and Trygon Predator (a card that's pobably insane in this cube) what's your opionion on them?(especially on the first one as I could see that beeing another artifact you'd like to sac)
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah, that seems pretty consistent with my experiences. I could see -1 salvage titan (though that saddens me), -1 painsmith, + skeletal vampire, +1 nameless inversion. And -1 etherium astrolabe (also sad to see go), +1 trygon predator. Predator should be quite good here, since it has time to get going, and rounds out our anti-artifact/enchantment tech.

The vampire is more of a nostalgic pick.

Spikeshot elder is probably more where I want to be. I suppose I could (sadly) cut raid bombardment for it. raid bombardment has been a bit narrow for me.
 
Modin

Modin

I actually think that Trygon Predator is too strong a card for this cube as it wrecks white removal and incidentally kills big artifact threads at a pretty low cost. Have you considered throwing Thopter Foundry in the mix of things? It does work well with the artifact sacrifice theme but it could actually be too strong as it buys quite some time with all the blockers.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I think I'll try trygon, i'm already putting in temur sabertooth, which I think is a card thats too strong, might as well get the max amount of data possible during a period of degeneracy. Besides, its more RGD goodness.

I do think there is enough anti-splicer tech now where the splicer deck can be kept in check. I could always add more 3 damage red board wipes as well. I kind of suspect that upping the amount of cheap instant speed removal might make the familiar deck more palatable.

I hadn't given much thought to thropter foundry. Do you imagine in just as a sac. outlet? It might be nice because the red metalcraft decks could use it to bin wellsprings, but with Pia and Kiran Nalaar being printed, I kind of want to wait for that (even though red is stacked).
 
safra

safra

I play a Thopter Foundry brew in Legacy and can talk about it if you have questions

It's a sweet sac outlet, lets you respond proactively to removal, and the cost (unless you're sacrificing Sword of the Meek) is pretty fair. It's a super grindy card but there's really nothing else like it, the flying on the tokens is a bigger deal than you think, and it pitches to Force! You probably don't care about that last one.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I guess the thing I have to figure out is if an artifact deck running blue exists in the cube: thus far they have been mostly R/W, with the exception of that R/G deck. I have had U/W decks that care about artifacts, but they tend to be more value focused than exploiting spheres, stars, and wellspring.

The big benefit of thopter foundry (in my eyes) is that it lets you sac. wellsprings while still keeping metalcraft active. Thats relevent to the R/W varients, but not nearly so much to the splicer focused U/W decks.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
It depends on the format. In pauper its really good, because a lot of the critical creatures have one toughness. Here it (should be) good because cloud of faeries, the splicers, spikeshot elder, mindshrieker, reckless waif, quirion ranger etc. You can also rebuy it with skyfisher and the ilk.

I also think flayer husk would be good here, because of all of the damage based spot removal/sweepers, sacrifice interactions, and ability to push creatures over golem tokens. But only so much space in the list.
 
safra

safra

Rasmus Källqvist said:
Is icatian javelineers even a card? Isn't a one time ping just incredibly narrow?
Click to expand...

It's always been surprisingly okay for me, nothing special though. The cool part is that a lot of really cubeable creatures are or have one toughness at some point in their lives (i have 73/360 x/1s or 1/1 token spells) so you can interrupt an opponent's plan, or hit a planeswalker. it's a tempo card and it's nothing to write home about but i'll pretty much always run it in a deck if it wants to be disruptive
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I've been trying to figure out bounceland math.

Selesyna Kitty from CubeTutor.com












Here I am trying 14 lands, with 4 bounce, and two fertile ground. I've gone the opposite direction of using bouncelands to run 3-4 colors, and am instead trying to make a really condensed two color deck, maximizing on the number of playables. Once you hit 4-5 bouncelands, I think 15 lands is correct, but have no idea what the ceiling on land reduction is. At a certain point I would think mulligan concerns would prompt you to run more lands (fear of 2 bounceland hands). Some of these decks I think could really be running 13 lands, or even 12, and be fine. We've been having this debate for about the past month, but everyone is too scared to go below 15 lands.

Also, its awesome that bouncelands are both promoting multi-color decks, and at the same time promoting two color decks.
 
Modin

Modin

About the math: I guess you need one not-bounce land in your opening hand (+another land most of the time) to be okay. According to Frank you need ~10 lands that aren't bounce lands to have one in your opening hand 90% of the time(mullingans included) and ~14 lands in general to hit 2 lands by turn 2(16 for 3 by turn 3). If you count the bouncelands as 1,5 lands(because there will be times when you draw the 25th or 26th spell instead of them), then you'll reach the magic 16 with 10 normal lands and 4 bounce lands, which seems to be quite the cap if you want to still have the 10 non-bounce lands.

EDIT: This number can change if your deck is capable to operate well at two mana or has a lot of cantrips. This deck for example could possibly go below 14(which in my opinion does sound quite crazy!)

A Familiar Feeling from CubeTutor.com









 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Modin, that deck looks insane.

Though speaking of familiar decks, I really want to move aggressively to explore combo disruption. Since the format isn't particularly condensed, I can seriously ramp up the impact level of some of the discard effects. Nightmare void and persecute were great cards back in 2005-2006 before shifts in NWO design made 4 mana discard obsolete, and thoughtseize king. Thoughtseize is fine, but the rest of the 1-2 mana targeted discard spells are no where near impactful enough to warrant a slot in most decks, and they certaintly are inadequete disruption to even hope to keep a combo deck in check.

Another card that I've been thinking a lot about lately is rewind. Having more unconditional counterspells would be a nice disruptive inclusion in general, and rewind seems like it could make playing counterspells in cube something to be excited about again. In conjunction with bouncelands, it can operate as a blue ramp spell--providing I can find the mana sinks for it to really shine.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah, its intriguing because it recreates the feel of mana drain. Unfortunately, mana drain guarantees you the mana on your next main phase, while rewind requires you use it on the phase you countered the spell. While this seems like a really spectacular way to punish people for poor spell sequencing, I don't think I have enough high impact ways to use the mana at instant speed.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Its a turn 2 aggro format, so generally you have time to smooth things out. The deck looks reasonable, but not as focused as it could be, and the format tends to really reward focused deck building. Its challenging to draft a format where the decks gain essentially all of their juice from being synergistic engines. You have a mix of metal craft, tokens, splicers, and value control. None of those parts are bad, but you run the risk of being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, and not being able to advance a gameplan as effectively as a more focused deck.

I know I sound critical, but your deck is a reasonable control deck, with some flaws. I would probably have ran 15 or 16 lands though, since you have so many bouncelands and a few scry lands. That way you can pack your deck with more control tools, and ramp your way up to four mana, where a lot of your best control spells are located. You also really need some more removal, and wumpus should be main deck as a sweeper.

I actually had a similar pool about a month ago, and ended up in a grindy B/W deck splashing green and blue that did excellent:

B/W midrange












Its a grindy midrange deck where everything is focused on blink effects and sacrifice effects to create inevitability and board control. 15 lands and a bunch of cantrips and cycling cards really made it consistent.
 
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