Meltyman's Test Subject (720-card cube)

[Meltyman]

I have cubed with a 720-card cube for 2 years now, and i have been swapping cards in and out of course, but nothing major.
Over these couple of years i have realized i really don't like: protection/tons of clone effects/hexproof/shadow too much.

Also some of my gaming group(s) dislikes heavily the goodstuff aspect of most cubes out there, mainly because brewing crazy stuff isn't satisfying enough when your opponent will play a constructed level deck while you are trying to setup your weird combo in vain.
Also there is the aspect of picking cards in a draft... It feels bad to pass a wurmcoil engine/batterskull/treachery when you could take a Hive Mind just because.
Most of my friends have played in tournaments for years and knows what you SHOULD pick and that affects the mindset of what you shouldn't pass.

To combat this issue or non-issue, i have been taking out some big players over these 2 years.
First i took out power 9, then i took out wurmcoil engine, batterskull, stoneforge mystic, Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of Body and Mind and Channel.

Now i am testing to limit "oppressive" cards, bad mechanics and boring draft picks as much as possible.
I took out Treachery, Thrun, the Last Troll, Bribery, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Geist of Saint Traft, Grave Titan, Inferno Titan, Terastodon, Maze of Ith, Hero of Bladehold, Sword of Light and Shadow, Sword of War and Peace, Thundermaw Hellkite, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Balance, Plow Under, Stunted Growth, Stillmoon Cavalier and shadow dudes.



My cube at the moment:
Link: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/16807

OR check out below.

(last update: 11.4.2016)


Size dropped down to ~540


White (70):

Creatures (37):

Spoiler

Non-Creatures (33):

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Blue (70):

Creatures (29):

Spoiler

Non-Creatures (41):

Spoiler

Black (70):

Creatures (34):

Spoiler

Non-Creatures (36):

Spoiler

Red (70):

Creatures (37):

Spoiler

Non-Creatures (33):

Spoiler

Green (70):

Creatures (38):

Spoiler

Non-Creatures (32):

Spoiler

Multicolor (59):

Spoiler

Colorless spells (68):

Spoiler

Lands (64):

Spoiler

----------------------------------------------------------

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

It sounds like you are starting to depower your environment, recognizing the difference between cards that are good and cards that are good for your environment.

If you haven't already done so, I would look at some of Jason's channel fireball articles, as he went through the same evolution.

The cube fallacy
Breaking the Rules
The Poison Principle
Remodeling Part 1
Remodeling Part 2

 

[Meltyman]

I have read those once, i guess i could take a peek once more.

Breaking singleton is fine, what ever. I still rather try to keep my cube singleton, it is a fine challenge. (although there are 10 different llanowar elves and two wild fires etc..)

Poison principle does have ok points in there.
My friend has a popular cube that is full of two card combos and the draft really feels “fetch-questy.”, if i understood that term.
It has 720 - 1000 cards in there and you either a) pick the powerful card there or b) if no powerful cards arrive, you pick some random grindstone from there and hope you get the other piece.
It is the first cube that makes me feel like i haven't actually made a deck from my picks.. two times out of four it has happened with that cube.
Usually in a cube you have too many good cards to pick from, but in this cube i have to add fillers to my deck to get that initial 40.
I still think it is better to have less playables than too many. I just haven't figured out the portion of cards to balance the amount of playables yet.

One of my concerns is the power creep that lingers from one archetype to another, just like now i cut some midrange value cards, so my reanimator/show and tell etc might get a little bit too powerful.
One problem with reanimator at the moment is that the targets are maybe a little too powerful, but the worse targets are _really_ bad in comparison.
There is no reason to reanimate a Gaea's Revenge or a Massacre Wurm, when you can play it pretty fast anyway.
The worse problem is in the artifact section. My cube has Inkwell Leviathan, Myr Battlesphere and Sphinx of the Steel Wind.(also Platinum Emperion that is pretty horrible)
These guys are almost unbeatable, but i think it is pretty fair most of the time, unless you go t2 tinker into Inkwell Leviathan, but oh well....
I hope they will print some sweeter big artifact dudes that isn't shroud and randomly unblockale like Inkwell Leviathan

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, its fine to try to keep your format singleton. I've tried to do that and have always given up. The mana bases always get me.


The first of those articles (the cube fallacy) addresses your power creep concerns pretty spot on. Though in your case, I think the issue is deeper than just power creep. Because the list is so large, and you are running so much filler to pad the size, you have a giant power gap between cards like cloud of faeries and jace, the mind sculptor. This has a few consequences:

1. Higher power cards obsolete weaker but more interesting alternative cards or alternative strategies.
2. Because of the cube's size and singleton nature, this creates the huge gap that you noted in the quality of reanimation targets.

The operative phrase here is "because <x> card exits, there is no reason to play <z>." In those situations, you should cut one of those cards, and smooth out your power level.

Unplayable cards should be cut, as they just represent a trap for your drafters. You can create interesting draft dynamics by running flexible cards that can fit in a number of different decks. To provide contours in the draft, and a sense of resource competition, you'll want some cards that provide direction.

These guys are almost unbeatable, but i think it is pretty fair most of the time, unless you go t2 tinker into Inkwell Leviathan, but oh well....

If those sorts of plays are creating a bad experience for your playgroup, I would just cut the offending cards.

-------

What themes and sub themes do you support for each of the 10 guilds? Do you support themes/subthemes for the wedges/shards?

Do you have some themes that are over represented and some that are under represented?

 

[Meltyman]

I have decided to try this change to the reanimator / artifact reanimator plan:
OUT: Inkwell Leviathan, Sundering Titan, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Griselbrand, Woodfall Primus
IN: 2x Aether Searcher, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, Rune-Scarred Demon and Pelakka Wurm

I think Aether Searcher is a fine card to have in multiples, because it basically is a different ability every time.
Also that card fits into many different decks, not just reanimator / artifact animator.
I'm pretty sure it will give us more unique games than Sundering Titan or Inkwell at least.

Gisela, Rune-Scarred and Pelakka may not be good enough, but i want to test this.

Thoughts?

 

[Meltyman]

To continue this interesting monologue, i am also testing using some combo pieces as multiples.
Birthing Pod, Aluren and Enduring Renewal. I will test with 3 per card mentioned for now. +1 to Isochron Scepter and Wildfire
Also i took out some W 2/1 and W 2/2 dudes for some more Champion of the Parish and 1 more Steppe Lynx

EDIT: Carnophage and Diregraf Ghoul out for 2 Gravecrawler. Jackal Pup, Stromkirk Noble and Rakdos Cackler out for 3 Vexing Devils. I realized Vexing Devil and Enduring Renewal seems like a silly synergy to go for!

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Because you're list is 720, one thing you might consider is running some multi-picks for those build arounds, to make sure that people get at least 2 copies for their decks.

What enduring renewal combo(s) do you have in mind? Thats a sweet card.

 

[Laz]

Examining your list is a little difficult, since it isn't really laid out in a way that lets me simply check if certain cards are there or not, but the general impression that I get is that it is a massive Johnny cube.

I personally like the feeling that the choices I am making are meaningful. For instance, I dislike multi-player Magic, because it often feels like playing good technical Magic does very little to influence the outcome (since, no matter how well anyone plays, 3 players will generally be able to beat one player if they decide to do so). This cube seems similar, where playing good Magic means nothing if your opponent just untaps and Hive Mind + Pacts you. There was no way to intuit that you had to play around it, and very few ways to interact with it.

If your players enjoy doing and seeing huge and hilarious plays, with the mindset of 'ok, lets shuffle up and do that again!', the cube looks pretty solid, and it looks like it would be fun to design for that ideal.

Now my questions are:
Am i going too far with cutting?
Should i cut even more?
Should a cube have any oppressive strategies?
How much support should a fringe combo have to be viable?
Who else here has a 720-card cube ?
If you don't have, why is that?
Do you play your cube just casually, or do you have a prize in the pool to make it more competitive?

These are pretty reasonable questions.
The first two are pretty much the same question, and boil down to 'Am I on the right track here?'. I would argue that you can never go too far with cutting. Whenever I do a Cube overhaul, I always start from scratch, then add cards that support the directions in which I want to go. I suppose that this is the equivalent of cutting everything.

As for whether a cube should have oppressive strategies, the question strikes me as an odd one. Why would you ever want a strategy that is just out and out better than everything else? That said, it looks as though the what you mean by oppressive is decks that just do their own thing on a completely different axis, such as Storm.
I don't think anyone would argue that Storm is oppressive (especially considering that in a 720-card singleton cube, it will be basically impossible to put together), but it does create non-games, since the storm deck will either win or lose, and it will generally have nothing to do with what the opponent did. If I am say playing GW beatdown, the game will unfold in one of two ways. I will kill the Storm player before they ever have a mass of resources, forcing them to go off and fail, or they will go off and win. Neither deck cares what the other deck is doing, and no one needs to make interesting decisions.
Reanimator is generally less polarising than this, because at least the reanimation targets can likely be interacted with, be it through creature removal, or creature combat. Creatures and creature interaction is a little more prevalent in most environments than counter-spells, and the timing windows are a lot wider.
I am confident that it is possible to build a combo-oriented environment, which is entirely based on doing unfair things, but I haven't worked out how to solve the non-interaction problem other than adding dozens of free-counterspells.

Fringe Combos? It depends on the combo. Combos like Grindstone + Painter's Servant? Sounds horrible. You get one of the pieces (probably 15th pick, because both cards are horribly bad) and it is monumentally useless. Get both pieces and you occasionally unpredictably win games out of no-where, in ways in which your opponent can't respond. That is not to say that game-ending combos are a no-go, but they shouldn't be assembled of completely useless components which only exist to facilitate the combo. I have won games in my Cube where I have assembled a board of Carrion Feeder, Blade Splicer, Reveillark and Karmic Guide, and proceeded to make infinite 3/3 Golems, but that is not a list of useless 15th pick cards. Those are cards for which there was competition in the draft process, where decks would happily take and play them without even thinking about anything more than value-interactions. If you play strong flexible cards, there may occasionally be infinite game-winning combos assembled, but I see no reason to add a card specifically to create such a combo. I have transitioned to having a hard and fast 'no two-card combos' rule, and I have never had any reason or desire to break it, the occasional 3-4 card combo that emerges is unexpected and fun though.

When it comes to cube size, I don't know who is running 720 card cubes. I don't think there are many here, but a quick search should turn some up. I have a pair of 360 card cubes, and I enjoy building at that size. The design is a lot more predictable, since you can include cards knowing that other cards will (or more accurately, will not) show up. It also allows for a more consistent power-level, since you are not forced to scrounge around for cards to fill slots.

I only play my cube casually, the most serious we would get is playing to determine who has to chip in for beers next time.

Hope that helps.

 

[Meltyman]

Because you're list is 720, one thing you might consider is running some multi-picks for those build arounds, to make sure that people get at least 2 copies for their decks.

What enduring renewal combo(s) do you have in mind? Thats a sweet card.

Infinite Mana, Infinite Damage, Mill.

Creatures you need to C-C-Combo, not sure if these are all in my cube, but from the top of my head:




Combine it with some sac outlets:




Combo also with these:
Heartless Summoning
Altar of the Brood
Siege Outpost
Purphoros, God of the Forge
and other fringe synergies like Champion of the Parish
when you go infinite with Priest of Gix for example.

Yeah, i have been thinking about adding multiples for those necessary puzzle pieces, but haven't come to a conclusion what number i need for this.
Enduring Renewal seems to have 8 cards that goes infinite and one of those cost 7. I'm sure that number is not too much, but not sure if it is enough.
In a vacuum you could play Enduring Renewal also with a deck full of creatures, because if your battlefield and hand combined has 3 or more creatures, you have an undying army in your hand potentially.

Aluren has :

Kor Skyfisher, Whitemane Lion, Emancipation Angel, Stonecloaker, Aether Adept, Man'-o-War, Cavern Harpy

Cloudstone Curio + two dudes
Equilibrium + Burning-Tree Emissary or Priest of Gix etc.

So that is 7 that leads to easy storm or just infinite shenanigans otherwise.
I think i rather like another Cloudstone Curio rather than just filling white slots with Selfbouncing Creatures

 

[Meltyman]

Examining your list is a little difficult, since it isn't really laid out in a way that lets me simply check if certain cards are there or not, but the general impression that I get is that it is a massive Johnny cube.

Yes, i made the list in here pretty fast and it must be messy at the moment.
My list is on my signature: http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/16807
But it is pretty hard to evaluate a cube without playing it, i know that.


I personally like the feeling that the choices I am making are meaningful. For instance, I dislike multi-player Magic, because it often feels like playing good technical Magic does very little to influence the outcome (since, no matter how well anyone plays, 3 players will generally be able to beat one player if they decide to do so). This cube seems similar, where playing good Magic means nothing if your opponent just untaps and Hive Mind + Pacts you. There was no way to intuit that you had to play around it, and very few ways to interact with it.

As for whether a cube should have oppressive strategies, the question strikes me as an odd one. Why would you ever want a strategy that is just out and out better than everything else? That said, it looks as though the what you mean by oppressive is decks that just do their own thing on a completely different axis, such as Storm.
I don't think anyone would argue that Storm is oppressive (especially considering that in a 720-card singleton cube, it will be basically impossible to put together), but it does create non-games, since the storm deck will either win or lose, and it will generally have nothing to do with what the opponent did. If I am say playing GW beatdown, the game will unfold in one of two ways. I will kill the Storm player before they ever have a mass of resources, forcing them to go off and fail, or they will go off and win. Neither deck cares what the other deck is doing, and no one needs to make interesting decisions.
Reanimator is generally less polarising than this, because at least the reanimation targets can likely be interacted with, be it through creature removal, or creature combat. Creatures and creature interaction is a little more prevalent in most environments than counter-spells, and the timing windows are a lot wider.
I am confident that it is possible to build a combo-oriented environment, which is entirely based on doing unfair things, but I haven't worked out how to solve the non-interaction problem other than adding dozens of free-counterspells.

Fringe Combos? It depends on the combo. Combos like Grindstone + Painter's Servant? Sounds horrible. You get one of the pieces (probably 15th pick, because both cards are horribly bad) and it is monumentally useless. Get both pieces and you occasionally unpredictably win games out of no-where, in ways in which your opponent can't respond. That is not to say that game-ending combos are a no-go, but they shouldn't be assembled of completely useless components which only exist to facilitate the combo. I have won games in my Cube where I have assembled a board of Carrion Feeder, Blade Splicer, Reveillark and Karmic Guide, and proceeded to make infinite 3/3 Golems, but that is not a list of useless 15th pick cards. Those are cards for which there was competition in the draft process, where decks would happily take and play them without even thinking about anything more than value-interactions. If you play strong flexible cards, there may occasionally be infinite game-winning combos assembled, but I see no reason to add a card specifically to create such a combo. I have transitioned to having a hard and fast 'no two-card combos' rule, and I have never had any reason or desire to break it, the occasional 3-4 card combo that emerges is unexpected and fun though.

With you on this one somewhat. First of all, i also loathe multi-player magic, this cube is not build to justify playing multi-player.

Yes, storm is mostly boring for the opposing player, but to draft and play storm is really exciting.
I have been thinking storm is unplayable in a 720 also, but i have seen and played really powerful storm decks with this cube lately, so i have changed my opinion.
Also Aluren makes Storm maybe too powerful now.

Those two card combos are pretty nasty, but i think i rather have combos than just creature combat.
Hive Mind is a good example, you can't fight against it BUT you might be able to pay the pact, so it is a risky strategy to go for, i added a one-of just to get a feel for the card. It probably is too narrow and will be removed unless people seems to like it.


These are pretty reasonable questions.
The first two are pretty much the same question, and boil down to 'Am I on the right track here?'. I would argue that you can never go too far with cutting. Whenever I do a Cube overhaul, I always start from scratch, then add cards that support the directions in which I want to go. I suppose that this is the equivalent of cutting everything.


Many times we have talked about what is the best part of the cube and it always comes down to drafting.
Brewing weird combos is more rewarding to me than making that most optimal goodstuff deck.
In MTGO i ultimately don't care that much what cube i am playing, because my enjoyment comes from "serious" competition since there you have money on the line. When i really want to win, i don't care that much if i have to make the same deck over and over again

This is why i am taking out some of the staples in a cube, to get a different feel for once.

I am still figuring out a perfect mix to balance the pool so that it serves an environment for different kinds of drafters.
Some people don't want a GoodStuff and some people don't want to test out a combo, because it makes their head explode.


When it comes to cube size, I don't know who is running 720 card cubes. I don't think there are many here, but a quick search should turn some up. I have a pair of 360 card cubes, and I enjoy building at that size. The design is a lot more predictable, since you can include cards knowing that other cards will (or more accurately, will not) show up. It also allows for a more consistent power-level, since you are not forced to scrounge around for cards to fill slots.

I only play my cube casually, the most serious we would get is playing to determine who has to chip in for beers next time.

Hope that helps.

Yes you gave me some food for thought, thanks!

 

[Meltyman]

Hmm, big changes this time around. I updated the original post.

After giving it a lot of thought, i also decided to take out Show and Tell / Tinker/ Eureka -kind of stuff out and added more of the combos that i like to see often.

Archetype multiples:
4x Wildfire
4x Birthing Pod
4x Aluren
4x Enduring Renewal
4x Goblin Welder
4x Dream Halls
2x Oath of Druids

Aggro/tempo got a little bit more interesting with these multiples:
3x Champion of the Parish
3x Steppe Lynx
4x Delver of Secrets
2x Carrion Feeder
4x Gravecrawler
2x Blood Artist
2x Bloodghast
3x Vexing Devil

Other multiples:
2x Priest of Gix
2x Priest of Urabrask
2x Tormenting Voice
2x Fastbond
2x Cathodion
3x Aether Searcher
3x Isochron Scepter
2x Ashnod's Altar
3x Cloudstone Curio
2x Phyrexian Altar

I try to keep the other cards singleton for the sake of diversity.
This Saturday after the Pre-Release i will hear opinions about "breaking the singleton" *gasp*
At this point i feel pretty confident that it is much more enjoyable to try to gather real combos than only "oops i win" with two cards every game

Probably people will be pretty scared that there is 4x of something, but when i think about it, in a 720-cube, that is not that big of a deal really. There won't be boosters with 3 Aluren in it or anything like that.

EDIT: And it didn't take too long for me to change the list a bit. Dragons of Tarkir is on CubeTutor !
In goes:

Spoiler

 

[Meltyman]

Counting stuff for each main strategy.

First off:




Non-creature nuts and bolts:

Spoiler

Creatures that makes infinite spell count easy:

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Creatures that Oozes with value in this strategy:

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Looks to me that Aluren is pretty much covered at this point.
You either need one of the 8 selfbouncerinos or a Cloudstone Curio + 1 value dude (from 31 options) + any 3 cost creature to accomplish madness.

 

[Meltyman]

Next one:




Sacrifice:

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Creatures to Combo with:

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Non-creatures to combo with:

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Pretty healty amount of stuff that goes with this plan also.
I think Enduring Renewal is also used just for value rather than just to combo out.
Reviving Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel should close the game up pretty fast.

Also, it is pretty neat to do these calculations, because i found a combo i haven't thought of before.
Enduring Renewal + Pestermite also goes infinite with Bouncelands / Gaea's Cradle / Tolarian Academy / Gilded Lotus etc if you sac it to Ashnod's Altar

 

[Meltyman]

Third one is:



Cards that dump targets to the bin:

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Main targets for Welder:

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Artifacts to swap for main targets:

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Hmm, might not be enough reanimator-level targets for Welder.

 

[Meltyman]

Number 4:



Cards that dump targets to the bin:

Spoiler

Targets to Reanimate:

Spoiler

Good ol' reanimator should have a place in this cube i think.
Enough everything pretty much.

 

[Meltyman]

Most hated archetype in this site comes next ?




Engine to build up your storm (non-aluren or enduring renewal):

Spoiler

Before i "broke the singleton", storm was doable in my cube and i am talking really bad ass storm, but it wasn't an everyday thing by any means.
Now with Aluren and Enduring Renewal, storm has more potential to be an option in different decks.
Also 3x Dream Halls makes non-creature storm a valid plan to aim early on in drafts.

 

[Meltyman]

After the painful trip to Storm-land, here is:




Best cards to ramp with to get Wildfire going (+bouncelands):

Spoiler

Creatures wild enough to survive the fire (finishers):

Spoiler

Seems fine to me. I've played Wildfire with 2 copies in the cube before and it has worked. Now it definitely should work more often.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Hm! This is quite a lot of stuff going on here, so I can't really comment on the details, but I do think it'll be interesting to see how the multiples of the really powerful broken cards will pan out. It feels like design space that isn't that explored on this boards? So, kind of exciting. I hope the storm idea pans out for you, tons of multiples on the etb-ritual dorks seems like a step in the right direction to making it less poisonous together with that crazy aluren package.

 

[Meltyman]

Hm! This is quite a lot of stuff going on here, so I can't really comment on the details, but I do think it'll be interesting to see how the multiples of the really powerful broken cards will pan out. It feels like design space that isn't that explored on this boards? So, kind of exciting. I hope the storm idea pans out for you, tons of multiples on the etb-ritual dorks seems like a step in the right direction to making it less poisonous together with that crazy aluren package.

Yeah, i haven't really laid everything out when i have been changing my cube. This is my first attempt on laying everything out there so that i see if i actually made an archetype work.
One of my concerns is that my cube will become too combo oriented.
But at least there would be that other end of the spectrum.
Usually it has been aggro and "goodstuff" that takes the win in most of our cube games.

 

[Meltyman]

Next up i am observing what a classical control could look like.
This one is a bit tricky, because you could be control in any color, so i try to keep it under blue, white and black.

Countermagic:

Spoiler

Removal and mass removal:

Spoiler

Card draw/card selection:

Spoiler

Finishers:

Spoiler

I think that the pieces for a true control deck is there, but getting it together is a bit tricky, since many different strategies want many pieces from it with the exception of mass removal.
Also it is hard to estimate at this point if the aggro portion is too valid for control to shine.
Anyway i tinkered a bit with the blue section after looking all the cards up. I think it could use a little more stuff for controlish strategies.
I added Force Spike, Daze, Forbid, Snap, Vedalken Shackles and Frost Titan.
Took out: Johnny, Combo Player, Free-for-All, Omniscience, Serendib Efreet, Deadeye Navigator and Time Warp

 

[Meltyman]

First Dragons of Tarkir Pre-Release and 2 cube plays are behind me.
Pre-releases went pretty horribly, 1-3 drop. Luckily i can go to another pre-release tomorrow.
But i opened a pre-release foil Ojutai's Command and i got a pre-realease foil Myth Realized, Narset Transcendent and Shaman of Forgotten Ways by trading !


Now to the cubing part.
First cube we played with 8 players. Second cube we played with 9 players.
First winner was Wb hatebears.dec with thalia and company. It even won the aluren deck with 3 alurens that killed using 2 gravecrawlers + blasting station/altar of dementia
Second cubes winner was RW aggro.
Turning dudes sideways wins even with so many combo pieces
Not sure if i want to take out stuff from the aggro section... i think aggro is viable because usually just one person is picking stuff for it or something.

A few key notes:

-People didn't cheer for Delver of Secrets :O
Everyone thought it didn't deserve the slots and that's fine, i will be removing them from the cube.

-4 copies of Aluren, Enduring Renewal, Birthing Pod, Goblin Welder, Wildfire, Dream Halls, Gravecrawler is too much.
There were decks with 3 copies of some of those and it really isn't necessary. I will drop the amount to 3 for now.

-I am still alive after trying multiple copies in the sacred world of cubing.
There were some hesitation about having multiples, but all in all it went ok.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Playing with multiples usually makes people at least make a little sense, and while not all agree to it, at least they've given it a chance in a real game. How come Delver wasn't well received? Also, if people who are building combo decks lost to the aggro stuff, is there things going on in your lower cmc interaction spells? Are there enough ways to kill creatures, especially ones like gravecrawler?

 

[Meltyman]

Playing with multiples usually makes people at least make a little sense, and while not all agree to it, at least they've given it a chance in a real game. How come Delver wasn't well received? Also, if people who are building combo decks lost to the aggro stuff, is there things going on in your lower cmc interaction spells? Are there enough ways to kill creatures, especially ones like gravecrawler?

I think one thing Delver of Secrets has going against it is, that people don't have fond memories of it in constructed formats.
It is a creature that kills way too easily in the right setting and is oppressive to play against in a constructed environment.

Aluren was the only one that no one argued that it is actually really hard to pull off without getting it early.

Some arguments went against Delver of Secrets and Birthing Pod.
The argument was that you really don't have to make it "work" in a draft.
Birthing Pod works in any deck that has many creatures.
Same goes with Delver, you just add it to your random control deck and everything works fine.

I didn't agree with this argument, because i have not seen Birthing Pod work that well when you have a one of.
I had visioned Delver to work in a draft environment in multiples because you can't just shove a delver in your deck and call it a day (in my opinion)
We had a player who tested twice. Narset has a bigger range of targets it can hit with its +1 ability (instant,sorcery,enchantment, artifact, planeswalker).
He said he activated that +1 ability 9 times during the games and he hit 0 times with it. I checked his deck from the second draft and he had 8-10 cards it could hit.

So you can't really say that a 1 mana 1/1 is that efficient with 8 targets, you have to mold your deck to work with delver.
In a constructed deck you have something like 27 instants and sorceries, so the equivalent amount in limited would be around 18?
That is too many, but you could get away with say 12-15 and some Sensei's Divining Top shenanigans.
After a good night sleep i decided i drop the amount of Delvers to 3 and see if it catches some wind.

About the removal, that is a good point. This cube could really use some more low cost instant speed removal.
This would also boost the prowess / delver -vision i am testing.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Maybe you could look at what kind of threats you have, when the average deck starts to get going and see if you can find suitable answers. Know what questions you have before deciding upon what answers to run, pretty much.

 

[Meltyman]

Pre-release weekend over. Sundays games went a little better and my deck was a little bit more sweeter.
Went Silumgar and opened a pre-release foil Sidisi, Undead Vizier. Also had all the parts for real exploit madness like:
2x Palace Familiar, Dutiful Attendant, 2x Vulturous Aven, Silumgar Butcher, Ruthless Deathfang, Rakshasa Gravecaller, Gurmag Drowner.

Went 3-2 with this losing my last match in a pretty salty way:

Games are 1-1, my opponent had 15 life, no creatures in play, no cards in hand. I have 2 life, a Boltwing Marauder and a Gurmag Angler in play, and a Sarkhan's Rage in hand with all the proper mana to play it.
I attack with both of my creatures putting my opponent to 5 life, i pass the turn. My opponent draws a dash creature that hits me to zero if i do nothing. I respond with Sarkhan's Rage and say the game is a tie.
In the middle of our fourth game i realize that i actually won the game because i had a dragon in play, but obviously it was too late at that point. I lose the match. *ouch*

Anyway, i updated my list once again and updated the original post accordingly.

Changes:

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Made some removal a little more faster, cut the multiples a little and replaced them with some interesting build arounds.
Welder went to 2 pieces, because Daretti basically is a third Welder.
Cloudstone Curio is pretty insane with Aluren, so i decided to drop the amount of Cloustone Curio in my cube to 1 for now.