Kirblinx's MTGO Adventures + Sometimes Cube

[Kirblinx]

So I just made a new 'riptide' cube and had a draft with it and wanted to record the results. Why not post them here?

I currently have 2 cubes and a 'stack' that I manage:

• [360] A 'power-max' peasant cube that I originally made as a pauper cube ages ago
• [360] The Wobbly Cube, a cube made from stealing ideas from everyone here
• [~300] A type 4 communal stack for some quick-fire fun between rounds

I will be interchanging my discussion between these cubes in this forum, just so I can keep them all in one place.
I will probably edit this later to have a more in-depth reasoning for each of my cubes but at this point this will do. I have vague descriptions on each cubes blog which should satisfy the curious.

EDIT: Still can't be bothered editing this first post

 

[Ferritovore]

How many communal games have you played and is it multiplayer only?

 

[Kirblinx]

So results from the first ever draft of the 'riptide' cube. Had a full 8 people, which was nice. Had one ring-in (poor guy) but other than that the rest were regulars with varying skill levels. Time to break down the decks:

The first of the base green 5-colour decks. This drafter is the other cube enthusiast of our group but more of the powered variety. Deck looked awesome, had great long game, which was a tad awkward due to the minimal time we had at out LGS ( it is in a shopping centre and we get kicked out at 9pm on the dot). It traded a game each with the Delver deck and won a very drawn out game against the other midrange deck. Splicers were great, so was the cagebreakers. I think he got mana-screwed more than colour-screwed, which happens I guess.

The other deck that caused time problems. Traded a game with the WR aggro deck and lost to the deck above. He loved the Mirri's Guile, Courser interaction. Only had colour issues once. Was interesting with the curve that he had, could be aggressive or play the stall game until he hit Atarka.

Kept making jokes during the draft of just taking mana fixing and complaining about not seeing what he wanted. Ended up with a pretty sweet looking control build. Beat the mono black deck and lost to my UB deck, although our second game was real close, mesmeric orb did some work. I don't know if he was ever able to cast that Silumgar with only 2 black sources or if he was able to get any thopters off the spy network but other than those the deck played pretty sweet.

The relatively new player who has been playing mono red in standard picked up nearly every white and red low drop you could think of to make this monstrosity. Whenever I looked down their end of the table her board was always flooded with creatures. Traded a game with 5 colour green and lost to UR Delver (just). I think she was either unlucky or not aggressive enough as this deck should have stomped. Although with only 1 removal spell she might have had some trouble getting through, not entirely sure.

This poor guy was our ring-in. He came to play with his UR Theros block monsters deck and got pulled in to our draft to make numbers. Had never drafted before. Didn't know how planeswalkers worked and ended up with a deck that almost looks like a hated out Welder deck. He lost against my UB deck and the mono black deck, although he did get a game win there. Crater Hellion and Siege-Gang did the most work (and won that one game for him) and he even managed to Welder out a Scuttles, which was cool. He seemed to have a good time even if he was out of his depth.

Hi. I first picked Ashiok, then some removal then somehow ended at this. I guess I wanted to see if mesmeric orb could be a thing and I guess it was. It pretty much won me the game against UW control. I had an extra match against the UR delver deck and it beat me handily in one game then mindshrieker whiffed 3 times to let me win the other game. I guess I was the winner of the night and am happy how tinker performed. Ashiok was obscene (especially against the new guy) and slaver was good enough to stay in.

He had a decent amount of red he drafted but decided to keep his deck mono black. Seems alright, just feels like it is missing some cohesion. Lost to UW control and beat the UR new guy. Don't think he ever cast demonic pact (he had it in his hand twice). Bloodsoaked Champ and Flesh Carver was awesome to see. Persecutor was his main beatstick and pretty much won him every game he did.

Mr. Jeskai opened up a Dig Through Time and ended up in delver (which I was expecting him to). Drew with pod, beat WR aggro by flipping a dig through time with this mindshreiker and traded games with me. Thought Scour and Dig Through time is just silly. Mindshrieker did some serious work, especially with Whirler Rogue. Did complain about how his delvers would never flip in his first two games then proceeded to have two games against me where he flips a turn one delver. My luck is real.

So some tidbits:

• There were some weird happenings during the draft: The only two black drafters were right next to each other. Only 1 person was really in green, and nearly everyone was in blue (I ran out of islands in my box).
• New guy hoarded all the fixing 'since they were in his colours' which explains why some people were short on fixing. Although having 2 5-colour decks certainly didn't help. I don't know if my fixing is in the right place yet.
• I would have loved to record first and last picks, but we just didn't have the time I mean, we barely got any games in.
• Would love a ULD. UW control would have loved a darksteel citadel, so I might make one and see if people are keen next time.
• No card was overly dominant in any game which was a good sign. Need more games before I can see if any thing is overpowered.
• Mindshrieker is great fun. It ripped a Dig Through Time and a Zealous Conscripts in consecutive games to win out of no where. It also tried to mill me 3 times for anything with CMC 2+ to get the win and hit 3 lands. Great little game-within-a-game card.
• Mildly impressed with mesmeric orb as a control finisher. All you need to do is make sure your removal costs less than your opponents threats and you win via inevitability. We'll see if it does the same next draft.
• The splicer package actually worked, even with them all at the CMC 4 slot. 4/4 flying golems are nothing to sneeze at. See if this continues.

God knows when I'll get another draft in but at least I got one in so I have some parameters to go against when I start tweaking.

 

[Kirblinx]

How many communal games have you played and is it multiplayer only?

I thought the first post on my cubes would be about the stack

So I'll do a better description of what it entails now.
The basic rules are:

1. You have infinite mana of every colour
2. You can only cast one spell per turn
3. Starting and maximum hand size of 5

It used to be called Type 4 or 'Limited Infinity'. It is meant to be drafted, and while I built it to be drafted, I drafted it once and realised it is just too hard for people to grok. My solution was to just throw a pile of cards on the table, call it a communal library, everyone draws from it and tries to beat each other senseless.

I've built it to play mainly as multiplayer. It can be done with 2 players however you end with scenarios like this:
Your Turn 1: Play Door to Nothingness
Opponent Turn 1: Angel of Despair, you Exclude it
Your Turn 2: You win

I mean it isn't the end of the world as the games are meant to be quick anyway, you just throw the cards you've seen to the side and draw a new hand and go at it again. It is sort of like commander where the fun is in the big flashy plays, politics and yelling at the other players. Generally I get about ~10 games in one run-through of the stack and have done about 20 run-throughs (I've had it for a while) so I feel the games have enough play to them that I don't want to change the rules.

Plus it is great fun sitting there with your little Dragon Whelp saying don't hurt the little baby dwagon. He is harmless. Look at that zero power. Just leave him alone. You'll be fine, trust me.

 

[Ferritovore]

How do those games play out? Do people win with creatures? Often? Are victories usually surprising, or inevitable and grindy?

I've played something sorta similar to this, called Tower. That one has face up drafting during the course of the game, maybe it's another name for type 4.

Tower is ... fun? Tower IS fun, for the first 30 minutes. And still kinda fun 50 minutes into the game. I usually prioritize eliminating players, rather than trying to win, so that games don't drag on. Commander kinda felt that way too but I only played that twice.

Tower also has a thing where it's easy to cast any color spell you want, but you have too many spells. We made a Tower stack with tougher casting requirements to encourage people to spend a greater portion of the game playing like a somewhat more normal 2-3 color deck. Responses to this were mixed.

 

[Ferritovore]

Okay I saw your second reply but missed your first reply. That's why I asked somewhat stupid questions! Catching up now.

 

[Ferritovore]

Oh, your first reply wasn't about the communal cube, carry on! Very cool-sounding games and cube though. I need to get more riptidy.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm glad you posted that mono black deck, as it highlights the issues I've had with mixing can't block black dudes with midrange graveyard value cards. That guy has two mutually excluding game plans in the same deck, but it dosen't look like it until he gets into a game.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Hey, I read some of your comments about the peasent cube. Some changes you could make:

1. Increase the number of mana fixing lands. Because there are only 20 mana fixing lands in the cube, I would either try to stay in one color as long as possible, or prioritize lands in my early picks. You could take the colored sections down to 50 per, which gives you +15 lands, and than subtract one multi color card per guild to go to 45: that should fix your mana issues, and take you to 50 lands total.

2. As for cards to cut, I would make it the power max cards (mother of ruins/ skull clamp / shriek maw) and some of the more narrow build arounds (angelic accord).

 

[Kirblinx]

How do those games play out? Do people win with creatures? Often? Are victories usually surprising, or inevitable and grindy?

I've played something sorta similar to this, called Tower. That one has face up drafting during the course of the game, maybe it's another name for type 4.

Tower is ... fun? Tower IS fun, for the first 30 minutes. And still kinda fun 50 minutes into the game. I usually prioritize eliminating players, rather than trying to win, so that games don't drag on. Commander kinda felt that way too but I only played that twice.

Tower also has a thing where it's easy to cast any color spell you want, but you have too many spells. We made a Tower stack with tougher casting requirements to encourage people to spend a greater portion of the game playing like a somewhat more normal 2-3 color deck. Responses to this were mixed.

Games play out like a standard game of magic. Person plays a threat, then next person plays a threat then someone attacks someone, they get angry and remove said threat. The cycle continues until removal is gone and the threat wins the game. Usually it is won by creatures. Sometimes Knollspine Invocation comes and blows one person away. Other times someone steals their Door to Nothingness with Word of Seizing and kills its owner. The threat count is high and most will kill in 2-3 hits, so games end rather quickly. There are some games where no one wants to eliminate a player or we draw all the mass removal and the game seems to slug on for ~20 minutes. This happens infrequently though, but frequently enough that I am considering cutting some of the mass removal for more threats, to make the games more quick paced.

You just have to find the fine line between 'unfair' (dead in first 3 turns) and 'too fair' (everyone keeps wiping the board for 20 minutes). I am getting close to that line, just needs more tweaking.

I'm not entirely sure I get how Tower works from your description, but I can ensure you that the drafting and playing a slugfest was what what made me not do the draft-style type 4. We did it once, the game took forever and no one was satisfied by the end. So I tweaked the rules and made it more rapid-fire to appeal to those kids these days with the short attention spans

Hey, I read some of your comments about the peasent cube. Some changes you could make:

1. Increase the number of mana fixing lands. Because there are only 20 mana fixing lands in the cube, I would either try to stay in one color as long as possible, or prioritize lands in my early picks. You could take the colored sections down to 50 per, which gives you +15 lands, and than subtract one multi color card per guild to go to 45: that should fix your mana issues, and take you to 50 lands total.

2. As for cards to cut, I would make it the power max cards (mother of ruins/ skull clamp / shriek maw) and some of the more narrow build arounds (angelic accord).

I have known this for quite some time. Especially in regards to the fixing. Although I keep forgetting to fix the problems, whenever we draft it, no one ever really complains, so I don't make it a priority to fix it before I draft it again. I have a sort of rule that once a card gets complained about, it gets cut. It is nice to get to play with broken things sometimes, even if just once. Skullclamp is the major poster boy for this, as everyone knows it is broken, but it hasn't actually done much in any games so far. Loxodon Warhammer on the other hand has singlehandedly brought games back from the brink of defeat that it really shouldn't have, so it got cut. The lifegain theme is going to be cut, I just had fond memories of Bubbling Cauldron/Angelic Accord back in its day that I thought it could work, but it really doesn't. I'll try and see what I can do for WB theme once I figure out the manabase first.

 

[James Stevenson]

How do you find type 4? Sometimes I find it just way too broken. I wonder if there's a low power stack we can build that would be really fun.

 

[Kirblinx]

Okay, so update time. Have been doing a little bit of fiddling with the cubes even though I don't really get to play them that often. These aren't really OGW updates as there isn't that much that excites me and I don't play with them enough to need new cards induced for variety. I've just been picking up things that are cool or things that I have had my eye on for a while.

Riptide Cube
Out:


In:


Nearly all of these changes are cards that I was waiting on to fill the cube, but they hadn't arrived by the time I had my first draft. The changes I made due to the actual cards were Demonic Pact for not having enough ways to deal with it to get the value, so in for Doomsday (hype). I had someone of cubetutor mention that they don't run delver without a specific amount of TOL manipulation, so I decided to swap a Thought Scour for another Brainstorm to help him out. Hopefully it doesn't start my spiral down to 5 BS territory
There was also a lot of talk around here of double Champion of th Parish being boring. I haven't had enough time with him to figure that out myself, but I had a nice new Kytheon to put in and it seemed like the easiest swap. The rest are strict upgrades, or just cool newer cards.


Peasant Cube
Out:

All 10 Guildgates
All 5 Vivid Lands

In:
All 10 Trilands
2x All 10 Painlands
All 10 Bouncelands

So as you can see I finally got around to fixing the manabase. A quick runthrough on all the things I took out...
Nearly all of the lifegain support because it sucked. Skullclamp because it was obviously overpowered. Mass removal, because this format seems to be all about the 2-for-1's that having access to 3+-for-1's was a bit overwhelming. Latch Seeker was average and never had a home. Tattermunge was so, so average, same with Crippling Chill. Masked Admirers is just too slow to do anything, same with Moan of the Unhallowed and same with Rukh Egg (although I still miss this card a little). I think blue had too much so I took Ray of Command away. With the new fixing I was adding I felt these lands weren't required anymore.

I decided that I wanted double painlands as a trial experiment in this cube. They fit the budget restraint I have on this cube and allow for untapped fixing. I was going to pair this with two tapped cycles of fixing lands. In the end I decided with tri lands for max fixing coverage and bouncelands as I had easy access to them (plus I enjoy playing them in the penny pincer cube too much). These lands my change as there isn't anything to interact with the bouncelands at this point but my first focus was to improve the fixing, which I believe this should do quite well.

I still need to tighten up the list more now that I have just hacked away an entire archetype but I want to see how this shores up my problems first. It might even lead to a complete redesign. I don't know what I am really doing with this cube anymore. Might make it my own penny pincer with painlands or something (why does that sound so familiar... ) but I'll leave it at this for now until some inspiration hits me.


Type 4 Stack
Out:


In:


I've noticed in some games that all people have in their hands is either situational cards or mass removal and the game goes into the 'unfun' state where no one does anything for quite a while. When they do it dies straight away and we continue to draw into more removal. I have decided to take out some of the mass removal in a hopes to mitigate times this happens in games. The Utter End I needed for my Bring To Light standard deck, so I just swapped it with Scour from Existence, which is basically the same thing, worse with All Sun's Dawn but better with Rare-B-Gone). Angel of Serenity I needed for the riptide cube so it just left the stack.

The adds are all new cards that I have gotten recently that look like they could be good. Counterspells are always awesome so any new ones go straight in. Aethersnatch looks especially spicy. I will get Overwhelming Demial in a trade some time later. Regrowth effects are strong in this format that even Eternal Witness is in my stack, so the beefier version is definitely going in. The eldrazi are all big-dumb-beaters that look to be interesting enough. Void Winnower may be a little too oppressive, we shall see. Kalemne's Captain fulfills my new belief of having situational effects on creatures. Allows you to play out a threat instead of hold the sorcery in your hand. Being huge is also a bonus. Phinx of the Final Word seems pretty good here. Since counterspells are king having them not be able to be used on your won spells is kind of insane. On a big beefy flyer no less. Looks like it was made for this format

How do you find type 4? Sometimes I find it just way too broken. I wonder if there's a low power stack we can build that would be really fun.

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was thinking about a response then forgot all about it and never looked at my thread since

I have made mine to be on the broken side. Having firebreathers mean that you have one chance to deal with it or you are dead. I like to think of it as my powered cube. You can expect to be blown out in one turn that you weren't expecting. It is more like a party game than an actual thought invoking draft session. Four mates seeing what broken cards they can drop in the first couple of turns, going 'really?'. Dying 5 turns later then starting a new game. It isn't about who won in the end but 'who did what'. You get some cool plays within the first turn of a game.
--Quick aside. One game (our third game that session) the person who came second last game got to go first and smugly dropped Door to Nothingness on the table. He smugly says to person three who won the last one that he would use it on him. He replies 'Well in that case', before the end of his turn he Word of Seizings the Door and cracks it on him. The look of utter disbelief was priceless. Died on his very first turn.
--End Aside

I know that this isn't everyones cup of tea, but I really enjoy it as some mindless fun. The biggest appeal is always people reading the cards and getting smirks on their faces once they figure out how stupid the card is. So while you could make a low power version of type 4 it isn't what I want. So I won't be forcing myself to try out that path. If someone is willing to try then I would gladly help them out though.

 

[Ferritovore]

The biggest appeal is always people reading the cards and getting smirks on their faces once they figure out how stupid the card is. So while you could make a low power version of type 4 it isn't what I want. So I won't be forcing myself to try out that path. If someone is willing to try then I would gladly help them out though.

Sounds kinda like high stakes magic. They thought the auction mechanic was the fun part, so they played it with fairer cards. Nope. The auction was good only because the cards you were bidding on were very exciting, putting you in a Monty Haul situation of wondering whether you want this awesome looking sports car, or you'd rather have more money for the next thing which could be a big ol mansion but might as well be a goat if it synergizes with the thing you just let the other player win but now you gotta bid crazy for the goat just to stop them from having it!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Love your Wobbly Cube, it's fun to draft!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I have just drafted the weirdest deck. I doubt that Titania, Protector of Argoth is a good fit for your fetch-less environment, but the prospect of going eot Chord of Calling for Sylvan Safekeeper is pretty terrifying! o_O

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I have no idea how these games would play, but these decks looks sweet. I really like how fun and enticing the multi-color options are (except for rakdos cackler).

 

[Kirblinx]

Thanks for the drafts peeps. The cube was pretty much a blatant mashup for Grillo's Redesign cube and RavebornMuse's cube. It seems to be getting its own identity it just needs more time and tweaks until it is something that I will be happy to call my own format.

A couple of things I am still not sure on:
Land base: So I am currently at temple, 2x shocks, buddy and bounce land cycles. I don't know if this is optimal. I would like to avoid fetches, because of price (no proxies) and have a decent mix of tapped and untapped fixing. I just put in 2x pain into my lower powered cube, but I wonder if they would be better here....
There are so many configurations that can be done. Maybe doubling up on the buddy lands is an option. Still a lot of work to be done here. I am hapy with the %age of fixing in the cube though. Seems to be in a good spot.

There are also several cards that are a tad lower powered or don't fit in with the rest of the cube that I need to trim out, such as:


The splicer package also seems a little out of place, but I really like them and shall leave them in a bit longer to see how they go (seems sweet with Precursor Golem ) plus the only draft I have had so far made a sweet pod deck with them, so they are making their presence known.

But these will just come with time and drafts, which I should hopefully get to do more when I move into my new place.

Also, it is weird seeing Pyromancer's Goggles as the third most pick card on my list (according to cubetutor). I need to draft it more to get soemthing even more silly up there (Spider Spawning perhaps?)

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think I first picked Goggles in one of my draft, I just <3 that card

 

[Kirblinx]

I got to move into my new place (I bought a house!) last weekend. After Game Day some people were keen to play so since my new place was the closest and there isn't anyone else at the house to inconvenience it was the perfect place. So even with barely any thing unpacked we cobbled together a couch and 4 other chairs to fire off the first cube draft (hopefully first of many) at my new place.

Draft was fun, with everyone gorging themselves on easter eggs and chips together bought from the service station around the corner. Now I know why salted caramel is all the rage these days, the sweet and salty work real well together.

Other jibber jabber that went on:

• What is Jace VP worth these days? WHY AREN'T YOU SELLING HIM!?!?!
• Why are there two of the same card right next to each other in the same pack (Birthing pod, pack 3, saddest face)?
• Everyone with the artifact enablers laughing at mindslaver but not taking it...
• Flametongue Kavu being last picked. I questioned everyone's sanity, and my own at not splashing a fifth color to accommodate him

The eventual winner was Lindsay 'This is probably the best draft I have ever done'.
He thoroughly beat everyone. It was the strangest looking deck when I put it together here, but it all worked so well together. Be it recurring Priest of the Blood Rite with either Alesha or Feldon several times. It could change gears from aggro, with those double bonesplitters, to midrange with those grindy recur engines, to control with Ob Nixilis and his two sweepers (Living Death, O Stone). Both games I lost to him were to the card advantage from Ob and the never ending threat of Epochrasite. I couldn't get past to hit the Ob. Then just die to the emblem. Deck was a masterpiece, was very impressed.

So I decided to do what I usually do is stay open for as long as possible, pick fixing highly then take all the good cards later when people are in set in their decks. I went a little all over the place this time going for a bant flicker deck until I saw lab man and Sidisi late pack 2. Decided to pick them up with my various sources to get the Lab Man back and keep that as a back pocket win condition. I managed to get it off once. Which was pretty sweet. Most of my wins came off the back of just dropping an aggro curve along with Geist and beating down before they could do their game plan. I really suffered from having no removal (other than Rout) and always had to try and go wide with tokens, which didn't always end up well. Not the greatest deck I have ever drafted, but it definitely looks like one of my decks. 8/10, would draft again (with more removal).

Didn't get to see any of his games. I know that he beat Dan and lost to Lindsay. Looks like a pretty sweet jund deck, should have cut the YP, Anger of the Gods and a Swamp. Not sure if Domri was played and how often he hit, might ask him next time how his deck performed.

This deck looked all over the place. Trying to be reanimator without the big creatures (only had Avenger of Zendikar) or the enablers. Against me he used the holwing mine to draw over his max hand size to discard it. But the turn he took off to do that put him back too far. Abyssal Persecutor was his main beatstick and won him his game against me (he brought it back with Necromancy and killed it with Rec Sage when the job was done, was awesome). Although I think the Hydra's were what got him is win (over Shane). I don't think I can do anything to the cube to help decks like this become more focused. I think it was just a problem with the drafter

Looks like he stole all the cards I wanted for my deck.
This looks like a sweet tempo/control UW build. The green look unnecessary, as most of the cards are there to help fix your mana, which you would need to get green. It is a vicious circle. I would have loved to have seen his sideboard to see what he could replace those with (I know he had Delvers but they wouldn't have suited). Took as many planeswalkers as he could see. I know they are OP and skew drafts, but people expect them in a cube this. I am trying to tread the fine line of PW density and the flip walkers help this out. Might have trim them down if they seem to be dominating drafts/games.

He went with something he doesn't usually play for 'something different'. After looking at the decks after the draft, I can now see why he was having land troubles all night
If the manabase was fixed up I think the deck would have played alright. I like Oona's Prowler in control lists. Feels like Delver in that is an early beater that is a quick clock, same with Mindshrieker. I feel he needed one of the early drop artifacts to make the thopter spy network work. It was pretty sweet to see it beside Trading Post and make for a head scratching time on how to get through all the tokens.

Overall a fun night had by all, some takeaways:

• Priest of the Blood Rite gets a temporary pass from the next cut due to them sweet interactions this draft. I was really keen to cut him for Shadowborn Demon too... Maybe next time.
• Keep an eye on the Planeswalkers on the next subsequent draft and see if they dominate the draft or the games. Ob Nixilis was the main problem this time (surprisingly). Figure out how to lessen their impact (shift them to only gold?).
• Get some easter eggs to go with some awesome salt and pepper chips I have prepared for next time.
• See how many lands Anton takes from the basic land box and force him to take more.
• Write down peoples discussions about cards/decks as I have a terrible memory.
• Cut Graveblade Marauder. He was meh in every other format, same here. Nothing else jumps out at me to be cut.
• Find a place to put my shiny new gameday promo Jori En (3rd with UW Sphinx's Tutelage Control, it was pretty janky, lucky to play against heavy creature based strategies)

If you read all that good on you. Have an untap symbol. It is the closest emoticon I can find here to a 'thumbs up'

 

[Onderzeeboot]

(I bought a house!)

Yay! Congratulations!

If you read all that good on you. Have an untap symbol. It is the closest emoticon I can find here to a 'thumbs up'

Yay! I got an untap symbol! I feel for Anton though. I have a player who consistently refuses to play more than 15 lands, 'because it always works out'. Well, he'll learn eventually!

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I don't know who this Lindsay fellow is, but clearly he is a man after my own heart.

Adam Thomas, the guy who writes "under the hood" at magic madhouse, had some interesting observations about planeswalkers, namely that they are really pushed for cube. The reason being that wizards designs them for standard constructed, and in that environment their are ample cards like hero's downfall and all sorts of ways for planeswalkers to die. As a result, they tend to have really pushed plus and minus abilities, because the presumption is that you will only get one, maybe two, activations with the thing. In cube, they are far harder to kill, which means you get broken plus abilities over the course of many more turns, and they can just take over the game. He actually suggests looking at the commander designed planeswalkers, because those are built with multi-turn use in mind.

 

[sigh]

I don't know who this Lindsay fellow is, but clearly he is a man after my own heart.

Adam Thomas, the guy who writes "under the hood" at magic madhouse, had some interesting observations about planeswalkers, namely that they are really pushed for cube. The reason being that wizards designs them for standard constructed, and in that environment their are ample cards like hero's downfall and all sorts of ways for planeswalkers to die. As a result, they tend to have really pushed plus and minus abilities, because the presumption is that you will only get one, maybe two, activations with the thing. In cube, they are far harder to kill, which means you get broken plus abilities over the course of many more turns, and they can just take over the game. He actually suggests looking at the commander designed planeswalkers, because those are built with multi-turn use in mind.

Agree very much with this. I've tried a few times with some of them. The clear winner of commander PW design has to be Daretti. They are all awesome though. In my own environ, switching Nissa, worldwaker for Freyalise.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, one of the things that I like about them is that they often are very bad at protecting themselves, which means you have to actually craft a game state with them rather than just jamming and going way up on board.

 

[Kirblinx]

I don't know who this Lindsay fellow is, but clearly he is a man after my own heart.

Adam Thomas, the guy who writes "under the hood" at magic madhouse, had some interesting observations about planeswalkers, namely that they are really pushed for cube. The reason being that wizards designs them for standard constructed, and in that environment their are ample cards like hero's downfall and all sorts of ways for planeswalkers to die. As a result, they tend to have really pushed plus and minus abilities, because the presumption is that you will only get one, maybe two, activations with the thing. In cube, they are far harder to kill, which means you get broken plus abilities over the course of many more turns, and they can just take over the game. He actually suggests looking at the commander designed planeswalkers, because those are built with multi-turn use in mind.

He has always been a fan of goblins, which is why he took them and the welder. The bushwhackers did a decent amount of work that I didn't think they would in this format. Being able to give your whole team haste after a living death is rather nuts. Will probably switch one over to a reckless bushwhacker. I am just yet to get one... :/

I don't feel they are as pushed in Safra's cube as they are in mine. I think that might be a curve thing, as her cube curve is SUPER low. You could be too far behind when you drop the PW for it to be oppressive. I guess the fact that all the decks this draft were pretty midrange-y meant that anyone who had continual card advantage would win. The PWs are an easy source of things to do each turn and generate card advantage.

The problem with the commander designed PW's is that while they may be designed for multi-turn use, they were also designed where there are 2+ times the number of opponents you would usually face in a standard environment. This means 2+ as many ways to deal with it. I've always found Freyalise to be extremely hard to kill in cube and I generally lose to it. The rest are too narrow or too boring to entice me to put them in a cube. Deretti is the only sweet one.


Another fun interaction that I forgot to mention in my deck was Saffi + Sun Titan. Being able to swing with an 'indestructible' Sun Titan was pretty sweet. I have been really impressed by Saffi and her interesting ability. It is a nice change from the usual Qasali Pridemage/Voice of Resurgence in the GW two-drop slot.

 

[Kirblinx]

So I finally got around to hosting another cube draft and it was thus titled: The Good Friday Draft!

...and a Good Friday it was. Could only sadly get 7 people. Was the same crew as the last draft with an extra person. Overall quality of decks were better and led to a lot of interactive games. We played round robin and played each person once. There was one pairing that didn't get played due to time constraints, but getting 6 rounds with my cube deck was great fun. This meant there was 18 matches, and only 6 of those were 2-0's, so that shows how tight all the matches were. Onto the decks!

So I got an early Scuttling Doom Engine and saw Tinker and Goblin Welder going around in the first pack. Picked them up on the wheel and went all in on the tinker plan. Deck was pretty great. Got to Tinker out Scuttles on turn 3 twice. I also won 3 different games with Mesmeric Orb. It is such an underrated card. If you can drop it on a turn the opponent has tapped out then it is just about mitigating your taps for damage to push through to be able to win. There were two really tight games where it came down to only a couple of cards a piece, but they didn't have enough pressure to finish me off. One game against a Whip of Erebos was extremely thought provoking as he would mill 5 cards a turn, but have access to more things. I only just scraped through thanks to Tamiyo but it could have gone either way.

The only person I lost to was Lindsay (I was his only win :\) due to his abundance of artifact removal. He survived Scuttling Doom Engine twice in one game, and the other game he managed to spew 4 creatures onto the board after a Blasphemous Act. Scuttles gets a big target on his head for next draft. I doubt I'll get passed him again

After the average performance last time with his UB 13 lander he comes back and drafts the same Carrion Feeder + Discard low end but this time picks up all the red burn and obscene 4-drops to push through for victory. His only loss was to me as I managed to Scuttling Doom Engine him pretty early in both games, which his deck just can't handle. Seems like Falkenrath Aristocrat decks do pretty well. If she keeps up this winning record she might have to get the axe, as she just beats so hard out of nowhere. I don't know if the Carrion Feeders are worth it in this deck, but hey, he won pretty much all his games, so I'm not one to complain or judge (actually, I am the one to judge). He didn't get to play Dan, but I think he probably would have won. Good job Anton.

The WB recursive aggro deck. I love this deck and I feel this is where the Carrion Feeders should have gone. Flesh Carver was good enough though and gave a lot of people fits. He only just lost to me in an epic Mesmeric Orb game and lost to Anton due to drawing all his 'non-black' creature removal that was pretty much dead weight against him. Other than those two he managed to grind out everyone else with the Whip and the never ending army. There was a cool moment I saw against Dan where he couldn't get through the horde of goblins on Dan's side but he was only on one life. Another couple of turns trying to find a way through he asks the question 'Protection means they can't block right?', then slams a Feat of Resistance naming red to push through the horde of goblins and a bestowed Boon Satyr sits there looking a tad awkward. The Whip was a little bit pushed I feel, but seems to make games interactive enough that I'll leave it in for a bit longer. I only did throw it in 10 minutes before the draft, so it can have another run.

The only person to have not played the cube before and she did a pretty decent job. The deck was pretty solid and reminded me a lot of Lindsay's deck last week where it could switch between Aggro and Control. She suffered a lot from bad variance (colour screw and mana flood), which may have been mitigated by taking out a land (she did flood a lot) other than that I can't really say anything else bad. Imposing Sovereign was back breaking everytime I saw it drop early. For such an unassuming 2 drop it does do a lot of decent work. I also didn't see the Curse get out of hand, which I expected it too. I guess she never drew the aggro curve to make it busted.

Allan's deck looks fairly similar to last time where it is just a mismatched pile of good cards. From what he told me he was trying to focus on EtB effects and have clones and Feldon to keep using them. It didn't really work that way, but he still won games off the back of his powerful cards. Managorger Hydra and Dragonlord Atarka to end games pretty quickly if left unattended. Also, did I mention how nuts Frantic Search into Dig Through Time is? You get to dig sooooo deep for so little mana. I'm sure he could have put in something else other than the Young Pyromancer, I don't think he had enough things to trigger it. I think I might need to take out Howling Mine, just so Allan stops picking it.

Oh, how the might have fallen. This was a pretty decent looking Pod deck, but a lack of removal and a couple of misplays cost him some matches. A pretty big misplay was showing only land during a Blackmail and losing his only forest and then losing to colour screw. He couldn't deal with the Managorger or the Primordial Hydra's which is how he lost to the other players with few wins. He utterly crushed me though with Reclamation Sage into Acidic Slime both games. He also recovered from a Blasphemous Act by ripping a Mulldrifter, podding it into Woodland Bellower getting a Kitchen Finks and making me regret awful life decisions. A Man-o'-War or Phyrexian Metamorph would have gone a long way to improving matchups. Also, this was the first time I was impressed my Vengevine. It came back quite a number of times and just attacked from nowhere. Jace was mediocre, but you would expect that in a deck with so few spells.

Last but not least we have Dan, who decided to go low to the ground and whack everything he could. I think the deck lacked removal as soon as he would lose too many guys trying to push through and just peter himself out. The Hydra was a pretty good top-end with his deck being able to drop it with the fewer mana sources but still have a threat that needs to be dealt within a couple of turns made me happy I put it in. He also played Life into Bushwhacker against me, which if he had one more land I would have lost, and I am unsure if he did it against anyone else but geez, that is quite the beating. I was only expecting Death to be used in the cube, but am happy to see it get used this way. I think he needed to cut the Satyr Wayfinder and Farseek for either removal or more top end, just to be able to push through and those cards aren't helping toward that gameplan.

So some quick final notes:

• I need to make Dan play quicker. He had the most aggressive deck yet took the longest to play his games. Almost did the entire round robin otherwise. Only a minor quibble.
• Used the pack distribution Shamizy used at one point and was pretty happy with the colour distibution. Will probably use it next time as well.
• Nearly all the doubles ended up with the same people. The only exceptions were Chromatic Star and Inquisition of Kozilek. I guess this is what I was aiming for in regards to archetype function density (what?) but it just doesn't feel right. I feel like people should be fighting over the cards more but that must be just a pipedream (or pipemare?) of mine... I dunno
• Sausage rolls are always more liked than party pies. Buy in 2:1 ratio.
• Still blinded by personal bias and unsure if any cards should be cut for power concerns. That is why I am recording all the decks so if anything seems to win a lot I can notice.
• <3 Mesmeric Orb

Thanks for reading. Thanks to my crew for the draft. Maybe in another month I can get another one in with fancy new SOI cards in it