Black recursion
Cutting the reanimator package means I am free to mess around with my Black recursion suite.
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The idea is to avoid signaling that a reanimator deck is possible. To that end, small reanimation replaces the unbound ones. This is a step down in power and range of targets, but there are a few things going for these changes that I like.
- You now worry about your own GY, rather than destroying an opponent's creature only to
Reanimate it.
- The LotR land cyclers can't cheese a win.
- I get a bit more synergy with Nightmare that can generate multiple cast triggers and Liliana can mill you a little bit.
I might revert to
Reanimate as it's a clean and simple card, but want to try this configuration first.
Trap glue cards
I recently
drafted a UB deck that started off as a Hogaak aggressive self-mill deck that then dipped into sacrifice and even discard. I had enough relevant playables to make a 60 card deck (check the SB!).
On the one hand, I’m super happy because it means that the webs of synergy overlap and makes the draft dynamic. On the other hand, this means that competition is fierce and only the best cards will end up in the main deck.
Cards like
Stalactite Stalker which in theory go in sacrifice, mill and discard, will almost never get played as they are worse than a
Carrion Feeder, a
Stitcher’s Supplier or a
Boneshards. Stalker is also a watered-down payoff for all of those themes. I'd rather have
Marionette Apprentice as a payoff for sacrifice,
Welcome the Dead for mill and
Monument to Endurance for discard than the Stalker.
This leads me to thinking that rather than adding more marginal glue cards, that likely won't end up in the deck, I am better off including cards that either
1. Completely recontextualize your existing picks
2. Are power outliers that give you a direction
As an example, my sacrifice decks have all the tools they need inside mono Black. To make it worth it to go into another color, you have to bring something
so unique or
powerful that your drafters will be tempted to branch out.
Here are some such cards that I think would fit the above description and make the draft more interesting
I've had Renewal in the cube for a bit and it produced some sick decks. I eventually cut it less narrow cards, but as mentioned, that might have been a mistake.
Jace was also in the cube in the past and lead to some sweet mono-Blue mill decks. Since I cut it, those haven't popped up nearly as much. I also miss a Blue Planeswalker for control decks that can take advantage of the incremental value. The fact that Jace is both an enabler, a payoff for GY/mill decks and a wincon for control/mill decks makes it a high impact include.
I'm going to pour over cube lists to get more ideas, if you have high impact suggestions for the themes in the cube, I'd love to hear them!
Artifact density vs artifact payoffs
Had a thought recently that has taken me longer to realize than most I assume, but here we go.
Colors without artifact payoffs need a higher density of artifacts or artifact producers
Why? This allows them to make use of the many colorless artifact payoffs and expands the artifact deck into every color. Even better if they are creatures or at least actual artifacts as that helps them synergize with the most payoffs as possible (
Myr Retriever,
Steel Overseer,
Scrap Trawler, ...).
Looking at the cube, we have Izzet with the most artifact payoffs while the Abzan colors have almost none.
Green
Realizing the need for a higher density of artifacts, I recently added
Esika's Chariot and
Simian Simulacrum. Chariot is a bit too generically good, but that just means that Green has an incidental artifact card that drafters will pick up early opening the door to an artifact deck. Simulacrum on the other hand, a bit too weak but fantastic at bridging multiple themes. Going back to the idea of trap glue cards, I think the Ape gets a free pass because of how impactful the artifact type line is at
enabling colorless payoffs.
Tireless Provisioner is another cards that that I haven't pulled the trigger on yet, but I may if I want even more artifacts or Simulacrum doesn't pan out.
Black
I haven't yet added more artifacts to Black, but it looks like the color could use some. There is a clear sacrifice trend going through these cards, here are some options to boost the numbers that seem widely playable and fit well with the cube's architecture.
Praetorian strikes me as a Mardu card with Welder/Engineer and White's recursion. It's a solid role player and looks suspiciously like a trap glue card.
Dispute is like a
Night's Whisper with more flair.
Some decks can really use tutors for added redundancy of key pieces. This can be really good with Welder/Engineer, Teferi, KCI, Gargadon, Phelia and more.
White
White has a nice spread. Contrary to Golgari colors, White actually has the option of including artifact payoffs.
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle,
Oswald Fiddlebender and
Ethersworn Canonist all come to mind. I am not currently running any of them though as Teshar feels very fragile for a 4 drop and Oswald + Canonist are quite narrow. I like two other artifact cards for density purposes
I've heard this plays well. Rate isn't exciting, but if you can draw a couple of cards you get your mana's worth.
This guy is a solid token generator. Chaining creatures shouldn't be too hard and you can run into some cool scenarios if you have stuff like
Three Steps Ahead or
Flash Photography. Also works great with
Enduring Renewal fwiw.
What about colors (Izzet) that have artifact payoffs? I think they can get away with a lower density of artifacts. The main reason is that I want them to branch out into another color to give drafters as many options as possible. Of course, they could take colorless cards and stay mono-colored, but that's pretty rare. I'll therefore try and reduce non-essential artifacts in Izzet.
I don't quite have the update finalized, but figured I would share where my thoughts are right now.
mana creatures. Walking Ballista and friends can be 9/9s on turn 2, but that isn't exactly game ending. Stonecoil Serpent would be a 19/19 if you wanted to. On turn 3, Goldvein Hydra comes down for a hasty 19 damage which isn't great, honestly. So maybe that one has to go.
