Aston's Cube
- Thread starter Aston
- Start date
A couple of grid draft decks:
There's one more 2 drop but I can't see it in the picture I took and I really can't remember what it was.
This was a fun matchup, I think we ended something like 5-4 in favour of the white weenie deck with 5 forests for one green card. Mine was the five colour greed deck, and when it worked (which was pretty often) it felt great, but when my opponent drew his one Wasteland it felt like I couldn't win. I never managed to cast Ajani or Emrakul, but I did Living Death to wipe my opponent's board and bring back Mulldrifter, Phyrexian Rager and Satyr Wayfinder.
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There's one more 2 drop but I can't see it in the picture I took and I really can't remember what it was.
This was a fun matchup, I think we ended something like 5-4 in favour of the white weenie deck with 5 forests for one green card. Mine was the five colour greed deck, and when it worked (which was pretty often) it felt great, but when my opponent drew his one Wasteland it felt like I couldn't win. I never managed to cast Ajani or Emrakul, but I did Living Death to wipe my opponent's board and bring back Mulldrifter, Phyrexian Rager and Satyr Wayfinder.
Merry Cubemas!
The Farseek with only Overgrown Tomb to fetch is a nice touch in this one.
There's not meant to be two Flickerwisps in the cube but somehow another one found its way in for this draft.
Aston Vial-Smasher Goblins
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Claude UG Crystal Shard
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Patrick RB Value
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Callum Jeskai Control
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James Monogreen Ramp
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The Farseek with only Overgrown Tomb to fetch is a nice touch in this one.
Dan BW Flickerwisp
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There's not meant to be two Flickerwisps in the cube but somehow another one found its way in for this draft.
Hannah 5C Urza
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Chris Taylor
Contributor
I mean, flickerwisp is super multipurpose...
Hmmmmmm...
Hmmmmmm...
I do love Flickerwisp, but I already run Restoration Angel and Kor Skyfisher as similar effects and I'm a bit wary of including too much flicker as it does add to on-board complexity. I couldn't fault anyone for doubling up.
e: Sorcery speed flickering isn't so bad actually with regard to board complexity, but it's still a consideration.
e: Sorcery speed flickering isn't so bad actually with regard to board complexity, but it's still a consideration.
Some thoughts from my experience over the long weekend at GP Birmingham.
First of all, my non-cube endeavours - I was signed up for the Legacy GP, planning on playing Death and Taxes, but a couple of nights before I had a crisis of confidence in my deck and switched over to the Constructed Fanatic package. I'm still not 100% convinced on these packages, as over the four days I was still only able to play in 5 events out of the six, in part because most of Thursday was taken up actually sorting out the switch, and it does commit you to playing a lot of events even if you would maybe rather not. The scheduling meant that the earliest event I would play in each day was at 12:00 and then I played another at 4:30, meaning that as my friends in the main event were finishing up I still had another 1-2 rounds to go. If however I had entered those five events separately it would have cost me an extra £25.00 so there is some saving to be made.
In constructed I played 2 legacy events. The first was with Death and Taxes going 1-2 losing to Belcher and Elves (both terrible matchups) and beating Miracles (not a great matchup but not so bad), which in my mind justified my decision to drop from the main event. The second event I played Miracles and went 0-3, losing to Sneak and Show, Aggro Loam (I think, I'm not that familiar with the deck) and Burn. The deck is so hard to play, I felt like I could have won each of those matches but just didn't know how.
I also played Boros Monarch in Pauper to much more success, going 2-0 and splitting the last round in three events, which gets you half a box and some prize tickets, or a box and more tickets for the Sunday double-up event. This deck is so cool.
I also managed to get in a 9 person and an 8 person cube draft. I unfortunately didn't manage to save the decklists, but I can remember some general archetypes:
Aston - UWR control/tokens and GBu God Pharoh's Gift
My first draft started off UW controlly, then I saw Jeskai Ascendancy and went more in that direction. I got passed a third pick Jace the Mindsculptor, without which I don't think I would have stood a chance in any of my games. I was lacking a bit in cheap spells for ascendancy, but I did manage to deal 22 damage to someone in one turn, and still went on to lose as they slammed Sword of Feast and Famine to discard my lethal Elspeth Knight-Errant, and untap and play Batterskull to hold the fort. Hordeling Outburst was a new card for this deck and I liked it better than Empty the Warrens, which it replaced.
Second draft my picks were Champion of the Parish, Soulfire Grandmaster, Recruiter of the Guard, then I saw fourth pick God-Pharoh's Gift (which gives you a Gate to the Afterlife to go along with it) and hard switched into that. I also got to try out Oversold Cemetery which was decried for being too powerful as it rebought Shriekmaw and Walking Ballista over and over again.
Charlie - Bu Reanimator and Naya Humans
I got smashed in one game by Dark Ritual into Liliana the Last Hope, which went ultimate very quickly, but the reanimator side of his deck was shut down pretty well by Jace. The second draft looked sweet, it was all the humans in GRW with at least one Champion of the Parish and a Thalia's Lieutenant. It could get some very explosive starts, but that mana base was a bit shaky.
Jay - 4 colour Mentor/Pyromancer and 4 colour control
I only saw a bit of the first deck but he was triggering Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer off Traverse the Ulvenwald and Cabal Therapy, which looked like a lot of fun. I played against the second deck which was planeswalkers and value - he got to play Kess, Dissident Mage to immediately flashback Swords to Plowshares.
Claude - WU Oketra's Monument and Monored
Another Oketra's Monument convert. The card is so sweet.
He also drafted monored, but I'm not sure how well he did with it. The deck is still playable but not the bogeyman it was in earlier versions of the cube.
Ethan - GR Ramp and Ug Split Screen
The first deck was fairly straightfoward but did have some cool parts, like a Birthing Pod chain from 1 to 7 to get out Myr Battlesphere if the ramp plan didn't pay off. He also Genesis Waved for 3 against me and hit elf elf land which seems way above expectation! The second was kind of a Split Screen buildaround, it was mostly blue with green for things like Coiling Oracle and Scavenging Ooze. Unfortunately I think someone else got a few of the good Split Screen payoffs in Courser of Kruphix and Oracle of Mul Daya, but he still said he really liked the card even without much synergy. This was also the deck that led to the game where his opponent Phyrexian Metamorphed the Split Screen.
There were a few other decks but I didn't get much of a chance to see them in action: Grixis control, 5c Urza, Two big green, one with colourless and one without, Esper God Pharoh's Gift, and another reanimator deck with Bazaar of Baghdad and Cephalid Colliseum. Split Screen and Oketra's Monument went down very well out of the new cards, Oversold Cemetery was quite unpopular.
First of all, my non-cube endeavours - I was signed up for the Legacy GP, planning on playing Death and Taxes, but a couple of nights before I had a crisis of confidence in my deck and switched over to the Constructed Fanatic package. I'm still not 100% convinced on these packages, as over the four days I was still only able to play in 5 events out of the six, in part because most of Thursday was taken up actually sorting out the switch, and it does commit you to playing a lot of events even if you would maybe rather not. The scheduling meant that the earliest event I would play in each day was at 12:00 and then I played another at 4:30, meaning that as my friends in the main event were finishing up I still had another 1-2 rounds to go. If however I had entered those five events separately it would have cost me an extra £25.00 so there is some saving to be made.
In constructed I played 2 legacy events. The first was with Death and Taxes going 1-2 losing to Belcher and Elves (both terrible matchups) and beating Miracles (not a great matchup but not so bad), which in my mind justified my decision to drop from the main event. The second event I played Miracles and went 0-3, losing to Sneak and Show, Aggro Loam (I think, I'm not that familiar with the deck) and Burn. The deck is so hard to play, I felt like I could have won each of those matches but just didn't know how.
I also played Boros Monarch in Pauper to much more success, going 2-0 and splitting the last round in three events, which gets you half a box and some prize tickets, or a box and more tickets for the Sunday double-up event. This deck is so cool.
I also managed to get in a 9 person and an 8 person cube draft. I unfortunately didn't manage to save the decklists, but I can remember some general archetypes:
Aston - UWR control/tokens and GBu God Pharoh's Gift
My first draft started off UW controlly, then I saw Jeskai Ascendancy and went more in that direction. I got passed a third pick Jace the Mindsculptor, without which I don't think I would have stood a chance in any of my games. I was lacking a bit in cheap spells for ascendancy, but I did manage to deal 22 damage to someone in one turn, and still went on to lose as they slammed Sword of Feast and Famine to discard my lethal Elspeth Knight-Errant, and untap and play Batterskull to hold the fort. Hordeling Outburst was a new card for this deck and I liked it better than Empty the Warrens, which it replaced.
Second draft my picks were Champion of the Parish, Soulfire Grandmaster, Recruiter of the Guard, then I saw fourth pick God-Pharoh's Gift (which gives you a Gate to the Afterlife to go along with it) and hard switched into that. I also got to try out Oversold Cemetery which was decried for being too powerful as it rebought Shriekmaw and Walking Ballista over and over again.
Charlie - Bu Reanimator and Naya Humans
I got smashed in one game by Dark Ritual into Liliana the Last Hope, which went ultimate very quickly, but the reanimator side of his deck was shut down pretty well by Jace. The second draft looked sweet, it was all the humans in GRW with at least one Champion of the Parish and a Thalia's Lieutenant. It could get some very explosive starts, but that mana base was a bit shaky.
Jay - 4 colour Mentor/Pyromancer and 4 colour control
I only saw a bit of the first deck but he was triggering Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer off Traverse the Ulvenwald and Cabal Therapy, which looked like a lot of fun. I played against the second deck which was planeswalkers and value - he got to play Kess, Dissident Mage to immediately flashback Swords to Plowshares.
Claude - WU Oketra's Monument and Monored
Another Oketra's Monument convert. The card is so sweet.
He also drafted monored, but I'm not sure how well he did with it. The deck is still playable but not the bogeyman it was in earlier versions of the cube.
Ethan - GR Ramp and Ug Split Screen
The first deck was fairly straightfoward but did have some cool parts, like a Birthing Pod chain from 1 to 7 to get out Myr Battlesphere if the ramp plan didn't pay off. He also Genesis Waved for 3 against me and hit elf elf land which seems way above expectation! The second was kind of a Split Screen buildaround, it was mostly blue with green for things like Coiling Oracle and Scavenging Ooze. Unfortunately I think someone else got a few of the good Split Screen payoffs in Courser of Kruphix and Oracle of Mul Daya, but he still said he really liked the card even without much synergy. This was also the deck that led to the game where his opponent Phyrexian Metamorphed the Split Screen.
There were a few other decks but I didn't get much of a chance to see them in action: Grixis control, 5c Urza, Two big green, one with colourless and one without, Esper God Pharoh's Gift, and another reanimator deck with Bazaar of Baghdad and Cephalid Colliseum. Split Screen and Oketra's Monument went down very well out of the new cards, Oversold Cemetery was quite unpopular.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Sweet work Aston! That already looks so much more polished than the first video! You're still switching sides after the draft though 
You also sneakily gloss over the second Birthing Pod that appears, that might take people off guard. All in all, quality content, and I could follow the action well!
You also sneakily gloss over the second Birthing Pod that appears, that might take people off guard. All in all, quality content, and I could follow the action well!Two cube drafts yesterday, my friend's pauper cube and then my cube. Here's a couple of decks (from memory, the orzhov deck is a couple of cards short)
This deck went 3-0 and was a ton of fun to play, a lot like a supercharged RNA Orzhov deck. Coalition Honor Guard did some work.
I managed to go 4-0 with this, although it was thanks to some bad draws on opponents' parts and one game where my opponent missed lethal by 1 point when they could have wastelanded their own land to grow their Knight of the Reliquary. Cranial Plating on a Smuggler's Copter or the third chapter of Antiquities War were some big damage.
Aston Orzhov Value Pauper
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This deck went 3-0 and was a ton of fun to play, a lot like a supercharged RNA Orzhov deck. Coalition Honor Guard did some work.
Aston Antiquities War
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I managed to go 4-0 with this, although it was thanks to some bad draws on opponents' parts and one game where my opponent missed lethal by 1 point when they could have wastelanded their own land to grow their Knight of the Reliquary. Cranial Plating on a Smuggler's Copter or the third chapter of Antiquities War were some big damage.
I went to the local legacy monthly tournament this Sunday and as it's unsanctioned and full proxies are allowed, I brewed up a deck myself for maybe the first time ever:-
With wish targets in the board being another Dreadnought, Emrakul or Mosswort Bridge, Karakas, or Cavern of Souls.
The idea of the deck is that Phryexian Dreadnought lets you activate Mosswort Bridge and cast Emrakul (or if you're unlucky, a Stifle or another Dreadnought for a quick 12/12), with Brainstorm/Sylvan Library/Worldly Tutor to set it up. It wasn't the most competitive field - I played against UB Painter's Servant with Narset/Walk the Eons, Hogaak Bridgevine, Abzan Nic Fit which might have had Rectors as well, 5c Humans, and then Grixis Delver and Storm as "real" decks, and managed a 3-3 record which is actually a lot better than I expected. Honestly the most effective part of the deck was just making a quick dreadnought and protecting it, rather than the Mosswort Bridge combo, but I did pull it off a few times including one turn 2. It's pretty silly but it does do a powerful thing every once in a while.
Best play of the tournament: My opponent casts Gravecrawler into Altar of Dementia, and at the end of their turn I Worldly Tutor. And then they mill me for 2.
Bonus cube list
This was drafted by Callum, my Hogaak Bridgevine opponent, after he got knocked out of top 8. It crushed me soundly and he said he thought it was one of the most powerful decks he'd ever drafted from my cube.
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With wish targets in the board being another Dreadnought, Emrakul or Mosswort Bridge, Karakas, or Cavern of Souls.
The idea of the deck is that Phryexian Dreadnought lets you activate Mosswort Bridge and cast Emrakul (or if you're unlucky, a Stifle or another Dreadnought for a quick 12/12), with Brainstorm/Sylvan Library/Worldly Tutor to set it up. It wasn't the most competitive field - I played against UB Painter's Servant with Narset/Walk the Eons, Hogaak Bridgevine, Abzan Nic Fit which might have had Rectors as well, 5c Humans, and then Grixis Delver and Storm as "real" decks, and managed a 3-3 record which is actually a lot better than I expected. Honestly the most effective part of the deck was just making a quick dreadnought and protecting it, rather than the Mosswort Bridge combo, but I did pull it off a few times including one turn 2. It's pretty silly but it does do a powerful thing every once in a while.
Best play of the tournament: My opponent casts Gravecrawler into Altar of Dementia, and at the end of their turn I Worldly Tutor. And then they mill me for 2.
Bonus cube list
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This was drafted by Callum, my Hogaak Bridgevine opponent, after he got knocked out of top 8. It crushed me soundly and he said he thought it was one of the most powerful decks he'd ever drafted from my cube.
GP Birmingham was this weekend. I played some side events (Pauper and Battlebond mostly - I hadn't played Battlebond before and I enjoyed it, although I would prefer to play it Bo3). But most importantly, Cube! We had seven players and a mix of archetypes - Mono-red, Jund Birthing Pod, GB Yawgmoth, Abzan Value Reanimator, Jeskai Ascendancy, Bant Midrange, and my deck, which I was very pleased with: four colour artifacts:
Scrapyard Recombiner was really good, it searches up almost all the artifact creatures in the deck and lets you get super value off Scrap Trawler. If you have this sort of theme, you should definitely give it a try.
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Scrapyard Recombiner was really good, it searches up almost all the artifact creatures in the deck and lets you get super value off Scrap Trawler. If you have this sort of theme, you should definitely give it a try.
Couple decks from Cubemas. We drafted twice but it was a bit chaotic so I only managed to record my deck and one other deck, both from the second draft. I had a sweet UR spells deck in the first draft with Young Pyromancer, Saheeli, all that good stuff, and a couple of the best Manamorphoses of all time: one to pump Figure of Destiny to 4/4 off 2 Mountains and an Island, and one in conjunction with Baral to ritual out Torrential Gearhulk a turn early. Card is sweet.
Anyway, here's what I had for this one:
3-1 record, I should have retired at 3-0 but got goaded into one more round where Elesh Norn destroyed me twice in short order. Redundancy on the Murderous Redcap combo was very nice, but mostly it was value city.
Some sweet Life combos in this with Goblin Bombardment and Jeskai Ascendancy, but according to the pilot it didn't really come together.
Anyway, here's what I had for this one:
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3-1 record, I should have retired at 3-0 but got goaded into one more round where Elesh Norn destroyed me twice in short order. Redundancy on the Murderous Redcap combo was very nice, but mostly it was value city.
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Some sweet Life combos in this with Goblin Bombardment and Jeskai Ascendancy, but according to the pilot it didn't really come together.
Cubemas 2: Cube Harder was this weekend, and it was very well attended with 13 people over the course of the day. We had two nine player cube drafts, two poker games, smash bros, Theros: Beyond Death and probably even more that I didn't see. Here's a couple of decks:
This is the first Red/Green deck I've enjoyed playing. It was incredibly rude, as any deck with Plow Under and Eternal Witness can be, and although it has ramp elements it didn't really play out like a ramp deck. I unfortunately never managed to make a token with Titania, although she was very good in conjunction with Treetop Village to make it effectively unblockable. I also somehow forgot that Oracle of Mul Daya has the "play lands from library" text, and only did that when I had it in conjunction with Courser of Kruphix. Even so, I managed a 2-1, beating 4 colour sacrifice/Jeskai Ascendancy and UB Artifact Aggro, and losing to GW ramp - turns out Crucible of Worlds is good against my land destruction cards.
Second draft
This was another unusual colour combination as Mardu never really comes up, but it worked really well. I have to say it's only just Mardu, as the only red card is Thopter Engineer and the only card that requires black is Tymna. I maybe should have splashed blue as well, because I had a copy of the Antiquities War in my sideboard and an Underground Sea to cast it. In the end it didn't make much of a difference as I went 4-0, beating Uw artifact control, UG ramp, Mono Red, and Sultai Midrange. Mishra's Workshop doesn't make it out of the ULD all that often, but here it was insane - any game I had it in my opening hand felt unloseable. I was otherwise very happy with how the rest of my cards performed. Thopter Engineer was one I wasn't all that sure about, but it's played out very well. Giving Signal Pest or Steel Overseer haste is a big game.
In Theros I drafted GWr with The First Iroan Games, Bronzehide Lion and Klothys, God of Destiny. First Iroan Games was very impressive but a little delicate, as a couple of times when I ran it out on turn 3 the token got killed and it didn't do much of anything else. I went 2-1, losing to BR with Kroxa.
Aston RG Thug
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This is the first Red/Green deck I've enjoyed playing. It was incredibly rude, as any deck with Plow Under and Eternal Witness can be, and although it has ramp elements it didn't really play out like a ramp deck. I unfortunately never managed to make a token with Titania, although she was very good in conjunction with Treetop Village to make it effectively unblockable. I also somehow forgot that Oracle of Mul Daya has the "play lands from library" text, and only did that when I had it in conjunction with Courser of Kruphix. Even so, I managed a 2-1, beating 4 colour sacrifice/Jeskai Ascendancy and UB Artifact Aggro, and losing to GW ramp - turns out Crucible of Worlds is good against my land destruction cards.
Second draft
Mardu Artifact Aggro
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This was another unusual colour combination as Mardu never really comes up, but it worked really well. I have to say it's only just Mardu, as the only red card is Thopter Engineer and the only card that requires black is Tymna. I maybe should have splashed blue as well, because I had a copy of the Antiquities War in my sideboard and an Underground Sea to cast it. In the end it didn't make much of a difference as I went 4-0, beating Uw artifact control, UG ramp, Mono Red, and Sultai Midrange. Mishra's Workshop doesn't make it out of the ULD all that often, but here it was insane - any game I had it in my opening hand felt unloseable. I was otherwise very happy with how the rest of my cards performed. Thopter Engineer was one I wasn't all that sure about, but it's played out very well. Giving Signal Pest or Steel Overseer haste is a big game.
In Theros I drafted GWr with The First Iroan Games, Bronzehide Lion and Klothys, God of Destiny. First Iroan Games was very impressive but a little delicate, as a couple of times when I ran it out on turn 3 the token got killed and it didn't do much of anything else. I went 2-1, losing to BR with Kroxa.
Yes, Cranial Plating in particular killed people very quickly. The Swords don't have protection in my cube so they're a little easier to deal with, but with the amount of evasive threats I had they were still very effective.
Jitte I think has sadly had its time. I personally don't mind playing against it that much, but it's one of the cards that generates the most complaints so it's going back to the binder.
Jitte I think has sadly had its time. I personally don't mind playing against it that much, but it's one of the cards that generates the most complaints so it's going back to the binder.
CubeCon 2024 Report - Part 1
Yes, I know it's been four and a half years since I posted in my thread, but I'm resurrecting it from page 7 to tell you all about my CubeCon 2024 experience.
After reading all the reports from CubeCon last year and obsessively watching all the coverage, I knew I had to try and make it for this year’s event. I’ve never been to the USA before and haven’t travelled for Magic at all in a long time, so I decided to make a full trip out of it, meeting up with some friends beforehand todo some sightseeing in Chicago.
The trip started for me at 3am London time on the 14th October with the unfortunate news that the train I was planning to get to the airport was cancelled. I got an Uber instead but didn't account for how much faster this would be and arrived four hours early. The flight itself was uneventful - I read Whalefall, which I’d picked up on the description that “it’s like the Martian if the main character was swallowed by a whale”, and which I enjoyed; then I watched Madame Web which sent me to sleep, and when I woke up we were starting to descend.
I met up with my friends at the hotel in Central Loop, and decided to check out the nearby Chicago Museum of Illusions. The highlights were a room with forced perspective that made you look tall in one corner and short in another, and a bridge through a rotating tunnel that almost made you fall over because it looks like it’s moving. After this and dinner I had been awake for about 25 hours straight, so headed to bed.
The following day was the main Chicago day. We started at the Field Museum which was fantastic - there’s three full floors of various exhibits, we started at the top and didn’t even finish that floor in the four hours we were there. I got a Chicago style hotdog from the canteen, which might not have been the best example of the "meat salad", but was still good. We had planned to visit the Shedd Aquarium next, but the entry price of almost $50 put us off, and it was pouring with rain at this point, so we headed back to the hotel to regroup.
I’d brought some English snacks to try so we took this opportunity to sit in the lobby and eat these. The big winner were the Prawn Cocktail crisps, and no one liked Twiglets - I’d always thought these were Marmite flavoured chips but that’s nowhere on the packaging which only describes them as “savoury”. Basically they just taste burnt.
In the evening we took on an escape room followed by Lou Maltaini’s deep dish pizza, which was good but stretching the definition of “pizza” for me.
On Wednesday one of my friends drove up with me to Madison for the event itself. We stopped in at Misty Mountain Games and I was introduced to JBro, one of the organizers of CubeCon. We only spoke for a minute but every time I saw JBro after that he remembered who I was, which I found impressive given how many people were around. Other than that the day was uneventful, my friend had to leave quite soon to continue her drive home and I headed over to my hotel for the rest of the night.
I’d signed up for the Capitol Tour on Thursday morning, which JBro had put together for us. He used to work at the state legislature and so he’d been able to get a couple of old colleagues to come round with us and answer questions. The building itself is incredible, it was built in the early 20th century and cost around $7 million, which translates to something like $2 billion in today’s money. I would highly recommend the tour if you get a chance in the future.
Finally, after all of this, I headed over to the venue for CubeCon proper. While waiting in the line to pick up my badge, the guy next to me struck up a conversation, and this sort of set the tone for the weekend - everyone was very friendly and always willing to chat. His name was Joe and he was in from I think Delaware, although I might be getting a bit mixed up there. He reminded me to sign up to Hedron Network and I ranked my cubes for the prequel draft. This draft counted towards the main event but only one point per win, so that people coming in for Friday weren’t penalised too heavily. I filtered for “classic” cubes as I wanted to ease in with something pretty standard, we were sorted for the first draft, and I got….
Neal’s Micro Cube
About as far from a “classic” cube as you can get! In this cube, you draft two packs of 10 cards and build a 15 card deck, no losing to decking, and if both players are unable or unwilling to advance the game state then the player with the higher lifetotal wins. I was frantically reading the primer as I sat down, and looking through the list for recursion, but otherwise went in mostly blind.
I first picked Damnation, followed by Oversold Cemetery, with the plan to try and trade creatures early, sweep the board, and follow up with the Cemetery to close things out. I got a Scavenging Ooze early as well which looked like one of the best ways to break up opposing recursion, but green dried up after that and I moved into red for Siege-Gang Commander, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and a Starstorm for a second sweeper. This was my deck:
After the first round, I cut the Hermit for a Swamp as it turns out 5 lands isn’t really enough, even with a bounceland.
Round 1 I didn’t have my notebook so the details are a bit fuzzy. I know I lost and I don’t think it was very close, I think I got stuck on lands a bit because my count was too low. Blue Sun’s Twilight for my opponent was a big factor in both games.
Round 2 I played against Alec, the designer of Lost in the Sauce which was also at CubeCon. He was committed to the branding, with a Tortured Existence playmat and a bunch of TortExes in a box in his bag. He was playing a UB control deck with a ton of removal and Walking Ballista/Academy Ruins as a finisher. Unfortunately he didn’t have an answer to Oversold Cemetery, and Scavenging Ooze was able to break up his engine, so he basically couldn’t win.
Game 2 started to show some of the things that make this format unique - at this point we’d seen each other’s full decks, and I knew the only way he could stop Oversold Cemetery was to Inquisition of Kozilek it before I could play it. I faded it on turn 1 and slammed Cemetery turn 2, confident that he wouldn’t be able to take it off the board, and I was right.
By now Blackcleave Cliffs has arrived right on time to be land number 4 and strand my Damnation in hand in what feels like ten games straight even though my notes indicate that's impossible.
Round 3 was against Brett playing UG. He had turn 2 Bristly Bill all three games, and I got too far behind before stabilizing. It turns out Starstorm is always a turn behind Bill, and Brett also had a Void Shatter he could sit on for Damnation.
I tried to next level him in sideboarding by taking out my two good enchantments that he’d seen but it backfired when he brought in hand disruption instead of enchantment removal, and I lost to a Deep-Cavern Bat holding my Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and the Makeshift Munitions which would remove it looking on smugly from the sidelines.
Record: 1-2
I wasn’t thrilled to get this cube first, but I am glad I had a chance to try something this unusual. I feel like a microcube would be a good way to warm up or finish out when you don’t want to do a full draft, but want just a little bit more Magic. The dynamic of knowing your opponent’s full deck after the first game is also interesting, and it really affected my play patterns - I was slowrolling cards a lot more and sequencing differently, for things like making sure I had a sacrifice outlet in play against an opponent I knew had exile based removal. Having played it once, I think I would enjoy the drafting a lot more a second time, and I have some ideas on building my own.
Something I appreciated was that for the most part, both exile and recursion were non-repeatable or required attacking with a creature like Cemetery Illuminator, so the graveyard almost feels like a second board you need to protect or interact with. Scavenging Ooze seemed like a bit of an outlier in this regard.
After this draft, I met up with Jamietopples who streams here:
She and her husband Jon had come in late after the first draft. I knew Jamie through her stream and it was great to finally see them in person, we all got dinner and caught up.
Friday morning was the start of the full main event. First up was…
Changeling Cube
This was my first choice at the Con, and I was worried it might be too oversubscribed to get a spot, so I was very pleased when it came out first. In this cube, you begin the game with an emblem that all your creatures have all creature types, as do your creature spells and creature cards not in play. Then, as you might imagine, there’s a lot of different creature type synergies.
I first picked Goblin Grenade as the only red card in the pack, over Angel of Glory’s Rise as I wasn’t sure how viable 7 mana was - I did regret my decision a bit when Flashturned up in pack 3. I grabbed Conspicuous Snoop and Goblin Lackey in the next few picks, doing a reasonable impression of a person who didn't understand the special rules of the cube, and found some blue cantrips to go along with them. Sliv-Mizzet, Hivemind came round very late and I got it straight in. I also managed to get Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Sling-Gang Lieutenant for the full Snoop combo with Flamekin Harbinger to set it up. This was the deck:
Laying this out, I thought it looked busted. Goblin Lackey/Malcolm to cheat either of my 6 drops into play, the Snoop combo, and a reasonable amount of card selection to get me there. However, I think I misjudged the power ceiling of the cube as we will see. My mana was also quite shaky, I have a lot of shocklands but only one fetch to get them, and I have to choose between blue and black when I use it. On reflection I should have played at least 1 Swamp over a Mountain as all my shocks are red anyway so I had plenty of sources.
Round 1 was against Glen playing a four colour value deck with Risen Reef, Krenko, Mob Boss, and lots of tokens. Game 1, Malcolm and Harmonic Prodigy combined to let me play an early Rottenmouth Viper which is especially back-breaking with the double triggers each time - my opponent conceded on the first attack. Game 2 went to my opponent who played Risen Reef on turn 2 and drew half his deck over the next few turns. In Game 3 I was able to set up the Snoop combo, playing Flamekin Harbinger on turn 1 to get the Snoop and then using Goblin Grenade and Dregscape Sliver to recycle it so I could combo off and win on turn 4.
Round 2 I played against Adam Fischer, of being Dana Fischer’s dad fame. He was playing a base green deck with lots of mana dorks, Elvish Archdruid, and some other lords. Game 1 I got behind and never really stabilized. In Game 2, I was starting to lose ground, but Harmonic Prodigy and Malcolm combined again, this time to put in Sliv-Mizzet when I already had a couple other creatures in play, meaning each time I drew a card I had 10 damage to throw around. The final game I mulliganed and kept a hand with 2x Mountain and Bloodstained Mire, and struggled to cast my spells. After a couple of turns Adam had two 1 toughness creatures and an Elvish Archdruid out, and I waited on my sideboarded Shrouded Shepherd adventure in the hope he would dump his hand of more little guys. Unfortunately instead his turn was Sylvan Safekeeper to protect his Archdruid from my removal, and another lord, so even if I managed to break through I still couldn’t sweep up. I didn’t last much longer after that.
Round 3 was against Griffin on four colour control. Game 1 felt like it came down to him winning the die roll, as he had an answer for turn 1 Goblin Lackey, Spell Quellered my three drop, and kept me off balance until he landed Uchuulon (a card I'd never seen before), which killed me very quickly.
Game 2 I also had an early Goblin Lackey - Griff played a Skystrike Officer to block, but I had a Fire//Ice in hand (which he had seen) to tap it down, get in, and play Sliv-Mizzet, plus a Brainstorm to kill his blocker. I played Flamekin Harbinger to get Harmonic Prodigy and set up for the win next turn, but he had a blocker plus a removal spell for Sliv-Mizzet, and the game slipped away from me. After I’d checked the cube back in I had a thought and looked up Goblin Lackey, and as I suspected but didn’t think about during the game, it triggers off all damage, not just combat damage! That means that from the Brainstorm triggers I could have put in Flamekin Harbinger and my sideboarded Scampering Scorcher, giving all my creatures haste and having easily enough damage to end the game right then. Realising the punt stung of course, but it was made much worse by how cool my play could have been!
Record: 1-2
Overall: 2-4
Not an auspicious start, but you only need about 8 wins to make the first cut to top 128, and my one point from prequel draft might help in the event of a tie.
The second draft of the day was my other top choice for the event:
Companion Cube
In this cube, you get to choose one card you draft to be your companion, with no deckbuilding restrictions, and under the original companion rules so you can cast it directly from exile. I first picked a Goblin Welder into Lotus Petal and then picked up a Hardened Scales, and I ended up waffling a bit between whether I wanted the Welder or the Scales to be my companion. I love playing Scales in cube and I was biased towards it, but I didn’t end up with that many combos and unfortunately I didn’t get the Arcbound Ravager which would have really sent it into overdrive. I got a couple good Welder hits in Kaldra Compleat, Cityscape Leveler, and Ruin Grinder with Underworld Cookbook and Faithless Looting as ways to pitch, and a few good value welder targets, so I opted to go that route and play RW Welder. I splashed the Scales as it’s still pretty good with several of my cards, but I don’t think I ever drew it..
I had a bunch of green cards in my sideboard and between each round I tried to rebuild into a Green-White deck, maybe companioning Stoneforge Mystic, but I couldn’t find a configuration I liked. It’s possible as well that Stoneforge Mystic or even Agatha’s Soul Cauldron was a better companion, but I liked the nut-draw potential of Welder for game 1s at least.
Round 1 was against Sam companioning Marsh Flats. I’d been able to watch a bit of companion cube earlier, and I heard one of the players say they picked Prismatic Vista early with a plan to play red or white aggro with a really low land count, and Sam had done the same but in Mardu. He told me after the match he was running 13 lands.
Sam had a lot of good, cheap, aggressive creatures in the colours, that also had a lot of value, including Dark Confidant, Inti, Phlage, and Guide of Souls, and a bit of a legendary theme with Mox Amber and Yoshimaru. Game 1 I Stoneforged out an early Kaldra, and although Sam was able to Flickerwispthe germ token, I welded it out and back in and the second Kaldra was too much.
One quirk of the companion cube is that you’re not obliged to keep the same companion after sideboard, so I switched to Mox Opal on the basis that my opponent might companion something to counter the Welder, but Sam kept Marsh Flats. Game 2 he had turn 1 Land Tax on the draw which I decided to play into, and it fueled up Inti to keep the cards flowing while I sort of sputtered out. Game 3 I went back to Welder, and I had another early Kaldra but it was answered with Unexpectedly Absent. The game was close until Sam landed Phlage to stabilize and escape a few turns later to turn the tide, with Giver of Runes pushing it through my board of colourless creatures and Skrelv for the win.
Round 2 was against Kade, the designer of the Way Too Hybrid cube, and who had been passing to me in the draft. It turns out they had taken Emry semi-early, decided to companion her, and cut me on a bunch of artifacts including the Ravager.
Game 1 I started on Welder and Kade went Esper Sentinel into Emry, milling over the Ravager and an Aether Spellbomb. They were quite shocked when I welded their Sentinel into the Spellbomb, as they hadn’t realised Welder could target opponent’s artifacts, and my follow up Agatha’s Soul Cauldron really put a damper on their Emry plans. We traded some resources until eventually hard-cast Ruin Grinder came down and was unanswered, which wasn’t exactly how I drew it up during deckbuilding but it works.
In Game 2, I decided to companion the Soul Cauldron against Emry….and Kade had switched to Swords to Plowshares for my Welder! I quite enjoyed this sort of yomi/levelling game in the companion choice, but maybe that’s because it paid off for me here.
This game also went long, until eventually Kade got Grinding Station down and started milling me. Soul Cauldron was doing a lot of work, and I landed another hard-cast Ruin Grinder to threaten lethal against their empty board, but after thinking for a couple of minutes Kade realised they had a line to mill me out with Grinding Station, I think using Phyrexian Metamorph to make a copy but I might be misremembering. However, on my upkeep I was able to bring back Scrapheap Scrounger, and Steel Overseer under the Soul Cauldron let me put enough counters on my creatures that Walking Ballista also from the Cauldron meant I could ping them down from nine life for a very satisfying victory and a stunned opponent.
The final round of Companion Cube and of the day was against Joe, the same guy I'd been talking to when I was waiting for my badge! I’d seen a bit of him playing earlier and knew he had a multi-colour green deck with Field of the Dead, and I thought he was companioning Amulet of Vigor but apparently he’d moved off that plan because against me he had Grist, the Hunger Tide instead.
Game 1 I had Welder and Underworld Cookbook, but nothing big to discard, so I was mostly using it to accelerate out 2 drops. At some point Joe played a scary Broadside Bombadiers, but I was able to kill it and get it under Soul Cauldron and Bombardier him out from eleven life.
For Game 2, Joe switched to companioning Prismatic Ending for my Welder, which I’d kept. Joe had an early Scavenging Ooze which looked like it was going to be a problem for my Soul Cauldron plans, but I was able to grab a couple creatures including a Sakura-Tribe Elder when he was tapped down to accelerate out on lands. However, a Broadside Bombadiers a few turns later really put the pressure on….until I got Grist under Soul Cauldron, topdecked Metallic Mimic and played it on Insect, and was able to make infinite* 2/2 Insects with Grist’s abilities.
*I realised recently that I hadn’t read all of Grist’s first ability and wasn’t milling when I activated it, so it was actually more like 20 2/2 Insects, but fortunately that was academic for this game.
I was able to gain some life with Shadowspearwhich turned out to be crucial, as the next turn Joe would have been able to Green Sun’s Zenith for 6 and throw whatever he found at me with Bombadiers, so even with the Insect army I felt like I had a lucky escape. However, without that available, Joe folded to the Insects.
Agathat's Soul Cauldron was the stand-out card from the deck both in terms of how powerful it was and how fun it is to play. I've been meaning to get a copy for my own cube and this will definitely make that a priority.
Record 2-1
Overall 4-5
It’s a slight improvement but I’m going to have to get at least one trophy on Saturday to be in with a chance of top 128.
I found Jamie and Jon who had both had similarly mediocre days, but promised to improve on it with dinner as she’d been invited over to Sam Black’s apartment and it was ok for me to tag along! I was expecting this to be Sam putting together a draft of his cube with whoever was around, but it turned out this is a tradition he does where he cooks dinner for some friends and celebrates the transition from Friday to the Sabbath. The other guests included Gavin Verhey, Zac Hill, and Tom Martell, and they swapped stories about magic play and design while the jetlag caught up with me, eating the delicious pasta Sam had put together in like half an hour. Everyone was gracious to accept what must have felt like a odd stranger in their midst.and I was very grateful to be included, even if I mostly just sat and listened while desperately trying not to fall asleep.
After dinner, most people headed over to the karaoke event while I decided it was time to go back to the hotel before I collapsed, visions of missed Goblin Lackey triggers and copies of Uchuulon running through my head...
Yes, I know it's been four and a half years since I posted in my thread, but I'm resurrecting it from page 7 to tell you all about my CubeCon 2024 experience.
After reading all the reports from CubeCon last year and obsessively watching all the coverage, I knew I had to try and make it for this year’s event. I’ve never been to the USA before and haven’t travelled for Magic at all in a long time, so I decided to make a full trip out of it, meeting up with some friends beforehand todo some sightseeing in Chicago.
The trip started for me at 3am London time on the 14th October with the unfortunate news that the train I was planning to get to the airport was cancelled. I got an Uber instead but didn't account for how much faster this would be and arrived four hours early. The flight itself was uneventful - I read Whalefall, which I’d picked up on the description that “it’s like the Martian if the main character was swallowed by a whale”, and which I enjoyed; then I watched Madame Web which sent me to sleep, and when I woke up we were starting to descend.
I met up with my friends at the hotel in Central Loop, and decided to check out the nearby Chicago Museum of Illusions. The highlights were a room with forced perspective that made you look tall in one corner and short in another, and a bridge through a rotating tunnel that almost made you fall over because it looks like it’s moving. After this and dinner I had been awake for about 25 hours straight, so headed to bed.
The following day was the main Chicago day. We started at the Field Museum which was fantastic - there’s three full floors of various exhibits, we started at the top and didn’t even finish that floor in the four hours we were there. I got a Chicago style hotdog from the canteen, which might not have been the best example of the "meat salad", but was still good. We had planned to visit the Shedd Aquarium next, but the entry price of almost $50 put us off, and it was pouring with rain at this point, so we headed back to the hotel to regroup.
I’d brought some English snacks to try so we took this opportunity to sit in the lobby and eat these. The big winner were the Prawn Cocktail crisps, and no one liked Twiglets - I’d always thought these were Marmite flavoured chips but that’s nowhere on the packaging which only describes them as “savoury”. Basically they just taste burnt.
In the evening we took on an escape room followed by Lou Maltaini’s deep dish pizza, which was good but stretching the definition of “pizza” for me.
On Wednesday one of my friends drove up with me to Madison for the event itself. We stopped in at Misty Mountain Games and I was introduced to JBro, one of the organizers of CubeCon. We only spoke for a minute but every time I saw JBro after that he remembered who I was, which I found impressive given how many people were around. Other than that the day was uneventful, my friend had to leave quite soon to continue her drive home and I headed over to my hotel for the rest of the night.
I’d signed up for the Capitol Tour on Thursday morning, which JBro had put together for us. He used to work at the state legislature and so he’d been able to get a couple of old colleagues to come round with us and answer questions. The building itself is incredible, it was built in the early 20th century and cost around $7 million, which translates to something like $2 billion in today’s money. I would highly recommend the tour if you get a chance in the future.
Finally, after all of this, I headed over to the venue for CubeCon proper. While waiting in the line to pick up my badge, the guy next to me struck up a conversation, and this sort of set the tone for the weekend - everyone was very friendly and always willing to chat. His name was Joe and he was in from I think Delaware, although I might be getting a bit mixed up there. He reminded me to sign up to Hedron Network and I ranked my cubes for the prequel draft. This draft counted towards the main event but only one point per win, so that people coming in for Friday weren’t penalised too heavily. I filtered for “classic” cubes as I wanted to ease in with something pretty standard, we were sorted for the first draft, and I got….
Neal’s Micro Cube
About as far from a “classic” cube as you can get! In this cube, you draft two packs of 10 cards and build a 15 card deck, no losing to decking, and if both players are unable or unwilling to advance the game state then the player with the higher lifetotal wins. I was frantically reading the primer as I sat down, and looking through the list for recursion, but otherwise went in mostly blind.
I first picked Damnation, followed by Oversold Cemetery, with the plan to try and trade creatures early, sweep the board, and follow up with the Cemetery to close things out. I got a Scavenging Ooze early as well which looked like one of the best ways to break up opposing recursion, but green dried up after that and I moved into red for Siege-Gang Commander, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and a Starstorm for a second sweeper. This was my deck:
Jund Microcube
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After the first round, I cut the Hermit for a Swamp as it turns out 5 lands isn’t really enough, even with a bounceland.
Round 1 I didn’t have my notebook so the details are a bit fuzzy. I know I lost and I don’t think it was very close, I think I got stuck on lands a bit because my count was too low. Blue Sun’s Twilight for my opponent was a big factor in both games.
Round 2 I played against Alec, the designer of Lost in the Sauce which was also at CubeCon. He was committed to the branding, with a Tortured Existence playmat and a bunch of TortExes in a box in his bag. He was playing a UB control deck with a ton of removal and Walking Ballista/Academy Ruins as a finisher. Unfortunately he didn’t have an answer to Oversold Cemetery, and Scavenging Ooze was able to break up his engine, so he basically couldn’t win.
Game 2 started to show some of the things that make this format unique - at this point we’d seen each other’s full decks, and I knew the only way he could stop Oversold Cemetery was to Inquisition of Kozilek it before I could play it. I faded it on turn 1 and slammed Cemetery turn 2, confident that he wouldn’t be able to take it off the board, and I was right.
By now Blackcleave Cliffs has arrived right on time to be land number 4 and strand my Damnation in hand in what feels like ten games straight even though my notes indicate that's impossible.
Round 3 was against Brett playing UG. He had turn 2 Bristly Bill all three games, and I got too far behind before stabilizing. It turns out Starstorm is always a turn behind Bill, and Brett also had a Void Shatter he could sit on for Damnation.
I tried to next level him in sideboarding by taking out my two good enchantments that he’d seen but it backfired when he brought in hand disruption instead of enchantment removal, and I lost to a Deep-Cavern Bat holding my Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and the Makeshift Munitions which would remove it looking on smugly from the sidelines.
Record: 1-2
I wasn’t thrilled to get this cube first, but I am glad I had a chance to try something this unusual. I feel like a microcube would be a good way to warm up or finish out when you don’t want to do a full draft, but want just a little bit more Magic. The dynamic of knowing your opponent’s full deck after the first game is also interesting, and it really affected my play patterns - I was slowrolling cards a lot more and sequencing differently, for things like making sure I had a sacrifice outlet in play against an opponent I knew had exile based removal. Having played it once, I think I would enjoy the drafting a lot more a second time, and I have some ideas on building my own.
Something I appreciated was that for the most part, both exile and recursion were non-repeatable or required attacking with a creature like Cemetery Illuminator, so the graveyard almost feels like a second board you need to protect or interact with. Scavenging Ooze seemed like a bit of an outlier in this regard.
After this draft, I met up with Jamietopples who streams here:
Friday morning was the start of the full main event. First up was…
Changeling Cube
This was my first choice at the Con, and I was worried it might be too oversubscribed to get a spot, so I was very pleased when it came out first. In this cube, you begin the game with an emblem that all your creatures have all creature types, as do your creature spells and creature cards not in play. Then, as you might imagine, there’s a lot of different creature type synergies.
I first picked Goblin Grenade as the only red card in the pack, over Angel of Glory’s Rise as I wasn’t sure how viable 7 mana was - I did regret my decision a bit when Flashturned up in pack 3. I grabbed Conspicuous Snoop and Goblin Lackey in the next few picks, doing a reasonable impression of a person who didn't understand the special rules of the cube, and found some blue cantrips to go along with them. Sliv-Mizzet, Hivemind came round very late and I got it straight in. I also managed to get Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Sling-Gang Lieutenant for the full Snoop combo with Flamekin Harbinger to set it up. This was the deck:
Grixis Cheats
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Laying this out, I thought it looked busted. Goblin Lackey/Malcolm to cheat either of my 6 drops into play, the Snoop combo, and a reasonable amount of card selection to get me there. However, I think I misjudged the power ceiling of the cube as we will see. My mana was also quite shaky, I have a lot of shocklands but only one fetch to get them, and I have to choose between blue and black when I use it. On reflection I should have played at least 1 Swamp over a Mountain as all my shocks are red anyway so I had plenty of sources.
Round 1 was against Glen playing a four colour value deck with Risen Reef, Krenko, Mob Boss, and lots of tokens. Game 1, Malcolm and Harmonic Prodigy combined to let me play an early Rottenmouth Viper which is especially back-breaking with the double triggers each time - my opponent conceded on the first attack. Game 2 went to my opponent who played Risen Reef on turn 2 and drew half his deck over the next few turns. In Game 3 I was able to set up the Snoop combo, playing Flamekin Harbinger on turn 1 to get the Snoop and then using Goblin Grenade and Dregscape Sliver to recycle it so I could combo off and win on turn 4.
Round 2 I played against Adam Fischer, of being Dana Fischer’s dad fame. He was playing a base green deck with lots of mana dorks, Elvish Archdruid, and some other lords. Game 1 I got behind and never really stabilized. In Game 2, I was starting to lose ground, but Harmonic Prodigy and Malcolm combined again, this time to put in Sliv-Mizzet when I already had a couple other creatures in play, meaning each time I drew a card I had 10 damage to throw around. The final game I mulliganed and kept a hand with 2x Mountain and Bloodstained Mire, and struggled to cast my spells. After a couple of turns Adam had two 1 toughness creatures and an Elvish Archdruid out, and I waited on my sideboarded Shrouded Shepherd adventure in the hope he would dump his hand of more little guys. Unfortunately instead his turn was Sylvan Safekeeper to protect his Archdruid from my removal, and another lord, so even if I managed to break through I still couldn’t sweep up. I didn’t last much longer after that.
Round 3 was against Griffin on four colour control. Game 1 felt like it came down to him winning the die roll, as he had an answer for turn 1 Goblin Lackey, Spell Quellered my three drop, and kept me off balance until he landed Uchuulon (a card I'd never seen before), which killed me very quickly.
Game 2 I also had an early Goblin Lackey - Griff played a Skystrike Officer to block, but I had a Fire//Ice in hand (which he had seen) to tap it down, get in, and play Sliv-Mizzet, plus a Brainstorm to kill his blocker. I played Flamekin Harbinger to get Harmonic Prodigy and set up for the win next turn, but he had a blocker plus a removal spell for Sliv-Mizzet, and the game slipped away from me. After I’d checked the cube back in I had a thought and looked up Goblin Lackey, and as I suspected but didn’t think about during the game, it triggers off all damage, not just combat damage! That means that from the Brainstorm triggers I could have put in Flamekin Harbinger and my sideboarded Scampering Scorcher, giving all my creatures haste and having easily enough damage to end the game right then. Realising the punt stung of course, but it was made much worse by how cool my play could have been!
Record: 1-2
Overall: 2-4
Not an auspicious start, but you only need about 8 wins to make the first cut to top 128, and my one point from prequel draft might help in the event of a tie.
The second draft of the day was my other top choice for the event:
Companion Cube
In this cube, you get to choose one card you draft to be your companion, with no deckbuilding restrictions, and under the original companion rules so you can cast it directly from exile. I first picked a Goblin Welder into Lotus Petal and then picked up a Hardened Scales, and I ended up waffling a bit between whether I wanted the Welder or the Scales to be my companion. I love playing Scales in cube and I was biased towards it, but I didn’t end up with that many combos and unfortunately I didn’t get the Arcbound Ravager which would have really sent it into overdrive. I got a couple good Welder hits in Kaldra Compleat, Cityscape Leveler, and Ruin Grinder with Underworld Cookbook and Faithless Looting as ways to pitch, and a few good value welder targets, so I opted to go that route and play RW Welder. I splashed the Scales as it’s still pretty good with several of my cards, but I don’t think I ever drew it..
Boros Welder
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I had a bunch of green cards in my sideboard and between each round I tried to rebuild into a Green-White deck, maybe companioning Stoneforge Mystic, but I couldn’t find a configuration I liked. It’s possible as well that Stoneforge Mystic or even Agatha’s Soul Cauldron was a better companion, but I liked the nut-draw potential of Welder for game 1s at least.
Round 1 was against Sam companioning Marsh Flats. I’d been able to watch a bit of companion cube earlier, and I heard one of the players say they picked Prismatic Vista early with a plan to play red or white aggro with a really low land count, and Sam had done the same but in Mardu. He told me after the match he was running 13 lands.
Sam had a lot of good, cheap, aggressive creatures in the colours, that also had a lot of value, including Dark Confidant, Inti, Phlage, and Guide of Souls, and a bit of a legendary theme with Mox Amber and Yoshimaru. Game 1 I Stoneforged out an early Kaldra, and although Sam was able to Flickerwispthe germ token, I welded it out and back in and the second Kaldra was too much.
One quirk of the companion cube is that you’re not obliged to keep the same companion after sideboard, so I switched to Mox Opal on the basis that my opponent might companion something to counter the Welder, but Sam kept Marsh Flats. Game 2 he had turn 1 Land Tax on the draw which I decided to play into, and it fueled up Inti to keep the cards flowing while I sort of sputtered out. Game 3 I went back to Welder, and I had another early Kaldra but it was answered with Unexpectedly Absent. The game was close until Sam landed Phlage to stabilize and escape a few turns later to turn the tide, with Giver of Runes pushing it through my board of colourless creatures and Skrelv for the win.
Round 2 was against Kade, the designer of the Way Too Hybrid cube, and who had been passing to me in the draft. It turns out they had taken Emry semi-early, decided to companion her, and cut me on a bunch of artifacts including the Ravager.
Game 1 I started on Welder and Kade went Esper Sentinel into Emry, milling over the Ravager and an Aether Spellbomb. They were quite shocked when I welded their Sentinel into the Spellbomb, as they hadn’t realised Welder could target opponent’s artifacts, and my follow up Agatha’s Soul Cauldron really put a damper on their Emry plans. We traded some resources until eventually hard-cast Ruin Grinder came down and was unanswered, which wasn’t exactly how I drew it up during deckbuilding but it works.
In Game 2, I decided to companion the Soul Cauldron against Emry….and Kade had switched to Swords to Plowshares for my Welder! I quite enjoyed this sort of yomi/levelling game in the companion choice, but maybe that’s because it paid off for me here.
This game also went long, until eventually Kade got Grinding Station down and started milling me. Soul Cauldron was doing a lot of work, and I landed another hard-cast Ruin Grinder to threaten lethal against their empty board, but after thinking for a couple of minutes Kade realised they had a line to mill me out with Grinding Station, I think using Phyrexian Metamorph to make a copy but I might be misremembering. However, on my upkeep I was able to bring back Scrapheap Scrounger, and Steel Overseer under the Soul Cauldron let me put enough counters on my creatures that Walking Ballista also from the Cauldron meant I could ping them down from nine life for a very satisfying victory and a stunned opponent.
The final round of Companion Cube and of the day was against Joe, the same guy I'd been talking to when I was waiting for my badge! I’d seen a bit of him playing earlier and knew he had a multi-colour green deck with Field of the Dead, and I thought he was companioning Amulet of Vigor but apparently he’d moved off that plan because against me he had Grist, the Hunger Tide instead.
Game 1 I had Welder and Underworld Cookbook, but nothing big to discard, so I was mostly using it to accelerate out 2 drops. At some point Joe played a scary Broadside Bombadiers, but I was able to kill it and get it under Soul Cauldron and Bombardier him out from eleven life.
For Game 2, Joe switched to companioning Prismatic Ending for my Welder, which I’d kept. Joe had an early Scavenging Ooze which looked like it was going to be a problem for my Soul Cauldron plans, but I was able to grab a couple creatures including a Sakura-Tribe Elder when he was tapped down to accelerate out on lands. However, a Broadside Bombadiers a few turns later really put the pressure on….until I got Grist under Soul Cauldron, topdecked Metallic Mimic and played it on Insect, and was able to make infinite* 2/2 Insects with Grist’s abilities.
*I realised recently that I hadn’t read all of Grist’s first ability and wasn’t milling when I activated it, so it was actually more like 20 2/2 Insects, but fortunately that was academic for this game.
I was able to gain some life with Shadowspearwhich turned out to be crucial, as the next turn Joe would have been able to Green Sun’s Zenith for 6 and throw whatever he found at me with Bombadiers, so even with the Insect army I felt like I had a lucky escape. However, without that available, Joe folded to the Insects.
Agathat's Soul Cauldron was the stand-out card from the deck both in terms of how powerful it was and how fun it is to play. I've been meaning to get a copy for my own cube and this will definitely make that a priority.
Record 2-1
Overall 4-5
It’s a slight improvement but I’m going to have to get at least one trophy on Saturday to be in with a chance of top 128.
I found Jamie and Jon who had both had similarly mediocre days, but promised to improve on it with dinner as she’d been invited over to Sam Black’s apartment and it was ok for me to tag along! I was expecting this to be Sam putting together a draft of his cube with whoever was around, but it turned out this is a tradition he does where he cooks dinner for some friends and celebrates the transition from Friday to the Sabbath. The other guests included Gavin Verhey, Zac Hill, and Tom Martell, and they swapped stories about magic play and design while the jetlag caught up with me, eating the delicious pasta Sam had put together in like half an hour. Everyone was gracious to accept what must have felt like a odd stranger in their midst.and I was very grateful to be included, even if I mostly just sat and listened while desperately trying not to fall asleep.
After dinner, most people headed over to the karaoke event while I decided it was time to go back to the hotel before I collapsed, visions of missed Goblin Lackey triggers and copies of Uchuulon running through my head...
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What a bunch of names to drop. Little did they realise they were in the midst of the creator of the 'Bald Whovian Trading Post'. A more privileged title than any of these people have.
CubeCon Rerpot - Part 2
Saturday started with me messaging Jamie and Jon to see if they wanted to walk over to the convention centre together, but with no reply at half an hour to the start of the first draft I headed over solo. About 10 minutes before, I got a message to say they’d just woken up - they hadn’t realised that day 2 started an hour earlier. Somehow, Jon still managed to make the first draft, but Jamie ended up sleeping in.
Now that I’d drafted the two cubes I was most interested in, I decided to go for one you might recognise: Highball 4K. I had seen that TrainmasterGT’s cube was in and wanted to try it if I had the opportunity, so this seemed like the perfect time. As I sat down, the last player to join the table sat down diagonally across from me and mentioned this was his cube! The Trainmaster himself had made an appearance. Before I could say anything, the person sitting opposite said “Oh my god! Hi, I’m transgaymulldrifter”, I introduced myself as well and the impromptu RiptideLab meetup was complete. Our pod also had Usman Jamil who should need no introduction, and Joe Anderson who’s a cube player from California, very active in the CubeCon discord, and runs cube events on the West Coast.
The judge passed the cube introduction over to Trainmaster as the designer and he took us through the additional rules - there are extra Bridges and tapped duals available in the basic land box. The cube is an homage to 2010s era Standard with additional cards from outside that era that support the themes and gameplay. This is something I really appreciate, as I feel some cube designers lock in on a restriction they want to build towards and won’t use any cards that break it, even if they would improve the gameplay experience.
I first-picked Crux of Fate, took a white card second (I can’t remember exactly which one, maybe Wingmate Roc), then saw Restoration Angel third which is one of my favourite cards to cast in all of magic, so I couldn’t resist. Languish came fourth, and with two black sweepers already I decided to go for a black based midrange/control deck. White was also coming through with some good hits, and I picked up a couple splashable green cards including the (unofficial?) mascot of the cube, Siege Rhino, but ended up deciding not to stretch my mana to accommodate them. I also found a pretty late Uchuulon, and picked it up on the basis of how badly it had wrecked me in Companion Cube. This is what I ended up with:
What could be a more 2010s Standard deck than White/Black Midrange? It’s not very pretty, there’s not a whole lot of synergy, just interaction and powerful threats. I have the small reanimator package as well, and arguably the Ashen Rider was a bit too ambitious, but Liliana or ECD bringing back my four or five drops also seemed pretty good to me.
Round 1 was against Joe Anderson, and from some of the table talk I heard he was probably on red-based aggro. This proved to be the case as he came out of the gates fast, and I almost stabilized but unfortunately my Crux of Fate lined up poorly against his board of Phyrexian Dragon Engine and two non-dragon creatures.
Games 2 and 3 both went in a similar fashion where I was able to trade off removal early and land an Uchuulon on turn 4 or 5, and start eating his graveyard to populate my board. This was where the power of the card really started to show, as in game 3 he had a Heirloom Blade on board he could equip to a creature and get it every turn, trade with my Uchuulon token and draw another creature, but as soon as he missed on finding a haster to do this with the Uchuulons multiplied out of control. I fell to a precarious 4 life but Wingmate Roc pulled me back out of burn range and Joe couldn’t close the distance.
Round 2 was against Usman, who was right at the other end of the spectrum, being four colour non-white control, primarily Temur. I’d seen some of his games from round 1 and knew he had a Pyrogoyf I’d have to watch out for. The first game, I inquisitioned him early and saw a Mana Leak. I got down a Currency Converter underneath the Leak, and the rest of the game he left up his counterspells and I just used the Converter to make 2/2s instead of casting any spells, and they eventually overwhelmed him. Having seen a bit more of his deck it had a lot of wheel-spinning and cantrips but seemed very light on ways to close out the game. Game 2 I got a board presence early and he couldn’t keep up with my stream of threats. I think Uchuulon put in another appearance.
The last round was against James on Naya (but mainly green) ramp with the trophy pin on the line. In game 1 he built a scary board quickly, but a Demonic Tutor for Damnation reset things and he never really recovered. Game 2 was slower, but again I had an early sweeper and Uchuulon and Wingmate Roc teamed up to take down the game, the match, and the draft!
Record: 3-0
Overall: 7-5
This was my favourite draft of the event. The vibe was much more relaxed than the others I’d done, the table banter was enjoyable, and Trainmaster was obviously thrilled with the fact he knew so many people at the table, and his excitement was infectious. This was the only cube I played where I played more games for fun after the actual match was done. Walking away with a trophy pin didn’t hurt either.
For the last cube before the cut to top 128, I wasn’t sure what to pick, so I selected a few that sounded interesting and got the Game Objects Cube, a cube all about making stuff on the battlefield. This may have been a mistake as I hadn’t managed to get any lunch due to the long lines at the food trucks, and it proved to be very mentally challenging. As we sat down, a few people were talking about chances to make the cut, and I reckoned if I could get a 2-1 I was in with a chance but I didn’t think it was guaranteed. We were getting ready to draft and there was still an empty seat where my first round opponent should be, and I had dreams of a quick bye, an hour for lunch, and an easy ride to the cut…but the judges found someone to fill and I would have to actually put in some work.
I don’t remember this draft as well as the others, I know I got an early Panharmonicon and took cards in Abzan colours without a clear idea of a direction to go. I first picked Parallel Lives in pack 2 as I assumed it had to be one of the best cards in the cube. Pack three I got back to back Academy Manufactors and a very late Crash the Party which I assume people passed over because it’s a commander card they didn’t know, but it seemed insanely good to me. I also snapped up Uchuulon for the second draft in a row. This is what I built:
The list is a bit shaky with no real plan beyond “make a lot of artifact tokens and hope that’s good enough”. I was a bit low on ways to actually start off my manufacturing as well, and regretting passing a Tireless Provisioner I’d seen in the draft in favour of a card I don’t think even made my deck.
Round 1 I played against the latecomer Jan, who said he had played the Loam cube in the first draft which had been notorious for games going to time all weekend. His pod had a game go to time in the middle of a player creating infinite turns, and the judge call on when exactly this had happened took a while as well. His name was vaguely familiar to me - I googled him after the match and it turns out he’s a magic streamer called DzyL, who I’ve heard of but hadn’t watched before.
Game 1 I got a few cards into play, while he played an Ornithopter of Paradise and missed a land drop. I tried to Haywire Mite the Ornithopter, but fortunately a player in the game next to us caught that Mite can only hit non-creature artifacts. I only had one green source in play and wasn’t able to pressure Jan enough before he found lands, put some defence together, and eventually Grinding Stationed me out. On the turn I was going to kill his Ornithopter, I also had Pile On available to cast, and in hindsight I should have used that instead. I didn’t know at the time that he was playing four colours, and losing the Ornithopter would have cut him off a lot of cards in hand.
Game 2 went a similar way, I got out ahead early and managed to land a Crash the Party for four Rhinos, but he stabilized behind a 5/5 Gleaming Geardrake and a Karnstruct, eventually Breya turned up to start chipping down my board, and he finished by using Transmutation Font to get Altar of Dementia and feed all his creatures to it to mill my deck.
Round 2 was against Adam on Temur stuff. My deck came together much more in this round, I got to put together Manufactors and Parallel Lives and eventually Crash the Party made eight Rhinos to close out the match.
Round 3 I played against Zephraim on Bant. Game 1 I did my thing, but to save a thousand words on exactly how it went, I’ll just show you my board state at the end:-
The copy tokens are of course Uchuulons.
Game 2 I didn’t do much of anything and Zephraim was putting together Anointed Procession and Doppelgang to beat me up fairly quickly.
This meant that the match came down to game 3, and as it turns out, I was potentially playing for top 128 but didn’t realise it at the time. Unfortunately, at this point my brain sort of gave out - I was able to start putting my engine together, but I made a very bad attack with 3 Uchuulons into some 4/4s, thinking they had 4 power for some reason. My opponent explored and showed a Doppelgang, but I wasn’t able to pressure them enough because of my earlier blunder, they spent a turn building up treasures and then was able to Doppelgang my Parallel Lives, Witch’s Familiar, Academy Manufactor, and their own Nuka-Cola Vending Machine. I could sacrifice the Familiar in response but I really should have hit the Manufactor instead. As it went, my opponent was able to crack one Food token and make about 2000 each of Clues, Treasures and Food, and animate enough with Tough Cookie to easily take the game. If I had to get knocked out of the tournament, that’s at least an impressive way to go.
Record: 2-1
Overall: 8-7
The event on Hedron Network is down now so I can’t check my final position, but I think it was around 170sh.
Right after this match, Trainmaster came and grabbed me to try the auto battler cube with gaytransmulldrifter and a friend of hers called Joey, who had also been in the Highball 4k Pod of Dreams earlier. This cube was designed by Ryan Saxe who had talked about it on Lucky Paper Radio the week before CubeCon, and I had been interested in trying it anyway.
The version that had been brought was cloned by Greg aka dinrovahorror, the designer of the Companion Cube, and he was kind enough to go over the rules with us. While the rules made sense, it was quite difficult for me at least to conceptualise what a strategy looked like.
The cube is split into roughly four equal stacks, one for each player. You start with 7 cards in your “pool”, and each round you draw a card to add to your pool and make a treasure token. Then you draw 5 more cards from the pool as a “shop” like an autobattler, and can freely swap between the shop and your pool; alternatively, you can think of it as drawing up to your pool plus 5 cards, then discarding 5. You can spend a treasure token to repeat this process. From what’s left you make a three card hand, choose three basic lands, then play a game against one of the opponents chosen at random, and you take any treasures you have left into that game..
My first matchup was against Trainmaster - I chose Chancellor of the Annex, Collective Brutality, and Migloz, Maze Crusher. I figured Chancellor might mean a spell was countered if Trainmaster had chosen all three drops, then I could discard it to the Brutality to kill a creature and check the hand for answers to Migloz.
Trainmaster’s hand was Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, Flickerwisp, and Sandstorm Salvager. Spoiler alert: this turned out to be the best three card hand any of us had and Trainmaster was undefeated until the very last round.
The loser of each of these games gets a poison counter, and when two people have 10 poison they’re eliminated and the last two play 1v1 until one of them hits 10 poison. Your hand limit also increases by one card every three rounds.
After a few rounds, Trainmaster was clearly ahead, and I think Joey and I were falling behind. Then I found Arena of Glory and Herald of Anguish together, and I’d built up five treasure tokens. My next match was against gaytransmulldrifter, the first time we’d played each other. I started with turn 1 Herald hasted off the Arena, she burst into laughter and conceded on the spot.
It was getting a bit late and none of us had eaten, so we played out a couple more rounds and crowned Trainmaster the winner as he was still only on one poison to our five or six each.
The format was interesting; going into it blind, there was a lot to take in, and like the Microcube it’s the kind of format I feel really starts to get interesting after a few plays when you’re more familiar with the card pool and know the sorts of combos you can try to assemble. That might also help with the speed, it was quite slow as we were all trying to parse what was possible within the constraints of the format.
Sunday morning was more relaxed without any pressure to be at the venue for a certain time, so Jamie, Jon and I had a look round some of the vendors at GameHoleCon, the “parent” con that CubeCon is part of, and there was some cool stuff - I got this t shirt and a second-hand copy of Skull King for $10 as a couple souvenirs.
At the CubeCon hall we managed to put together a 3v3 team draft against some folks from Kansas City: Jay, who’s “Cake and Cubits” cube we were playing with, Levi, and Sage. The cube was wild, it was Vintage power level with playtest cards, some customs like a hybrid Lore Seeker/Cogwork Librarian with specific packs that it added, silver borders, even the hero cards from an event they ran with Theros. I found a Kalamax, the Stormsire early, and went all in drafting around him. I got a couple nice combos, and during deckbuilding Jon pointed out that How to Keep an Izzet Mage Busy and How is this a Par Three make a pretty sweet combo, so that was my main win condition. I didn’t have much in the way of removal though, so I had to hope my value was enough. This was the deck:
Jamie had built a UW control deck, Jon was on Abzan midrange.
Round 1 was against Levi, who had an Orzhov midrangey deck. Game 1 I lost to turn 2 Pack Rat on the play. Game 2 went super long, I got out to an early start with Kalamax and Harrow for the super ramp, but Kalamax died and then we traded resources for a long time. I found How is this a Par Three with about 3 cards left in my library and was able to mill Levi out with one cast of HTKAIMB.
Game 3 I lost to turn 2 Pack Rat on the play.
Round 2 I played against Sage, who had a BG reanimator deck with Recurring Nightmare, Vaultborn Tyrant, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and The Slayer hero. Game 1 they were able to cheat an Ulamog into play quickly and I couldn’t answer it. Game 2 I was able to put together the HITAP3 and HTKAIMB, milled them down to 1 card left, and the extra turn wasn’t enough for them to finish me off.
Game 3 was one of my favourites of the weekend - I had Kalamax one turn 4, with Harrow and Crop Rotation putting me ahead on lands. Sage got Recurring Nightmare but without anything too scary to put into play, and I was able to whittle down their board with Kalamax attacks and a Legion Leadership to win a combat. On Sage’s next turn they tapped out for a Vaultborn Tyrant, which left me open to tap it with Forenic Researcher (out of the sideboard), play Lier, attack with Kalamax, and before blockers flashback Legion Leadership, copy it to put Kalamax at 32 power, and flashback Abrade to kill Sage’s last creature to get him through.
I was able to watch most of Jamie’s last game against Jay who was playing Oath of Druids. There was a lot of dancing around, Sublime Epiphany showed up for a big blowout, and then Jay Oathed into Combustible Gearhulk as the second to last card in their library for a very funny win. I had to leave to catch my bus back to Chicago, so we weren’t able to play the last round, and left it at a 3-3 tie with a promise of a rematch whenever possible. I had a great time with this cube, the goofy tone was a perfect way to end the weekend, and the Kansas City people were a lot of fun to play with.
Back in Chicago, I had a day before my flight to mooch around and catch anything I’d missed. I was luckier with the weather and had a beautiful day I spent walking by the lake, visiting the planetarium, and finding some souvenirs to bring home in the city. Here’s a couple pictures of the views.
It was a fantastic trip, CubeCon is obviously a labour of love, and everyone there really bought into the spirit of the event. There was a real range of players, from pros to players like me who only really play Cube. The news from last week of Jonathan Brostoff’s death was a huge shock and a loss to the community, and even though I only spoke to him a couple of times it was clear that bringing people together with a shared passion was very important to him. I don’t know what it means for the future of CubeCon, but if it carries on in any way, shape, or form, I’m definitely going back.
Saturday started with me messaging Jamie and Jon to see if they wanted to walk over to the convention centre together, but with no reply at half an hour to the start of the first draft I headed over solo. About 10 minutes before, I got a message to say they’d just woken up - they hadn’t realised that day 2 started an hour earlier. Somehow, Jon still managed to make the first draft, but Jamie ended up sleeping in.
Now that I’d drafted the two cubes I was most interested in, I decided to go for one you might recognise: Highball 4K. I had seen that TrainmasterGT’s cube was in and wanted to try it if I had the opportunity, so this seemed like the perfect time. As I sat down, the last player to join the table sat down diagonally across from me and mentioned this was his cube! The Trainmaster himself had made an appearance. Before I could say anything, the person sitting opposite said “Oh my god! Hi, I’m transgaymulldrifter”, I introduced myself as well and the impromptu RiptideLab meetup was complete. Our pod also had Usman Jamil who should need no introduction, and Joe Anderson who’s a cube player from California, very active in the CubeCon discord, and runs cube events on the West Coast.
The judge passed the cube introduction over to Trainmaster as the designer and he took us through the additional rules - there are extra Bridges and tapped duals available in the basic land box. The cube is an homage to 2010s era Standard with additional cards from outside that era that support the themes and gameplay. This is something I really appreciate, as I feel some cube designers lock in on a restriction they want to build towards and won’t use any cards that break it, even if they would improve the gameplay experience.
I first-picked Crux of Fate, took a white card second (I can’t remember exactly which one, maybe Wingmate Roc), then saw Restoration Angel third which is one of my favourite cards to cast in all of magic, so I couldn’t resist. Languish came fourth, and with two black sweepers already I decided to go for a black based midrange/control deck. White was also coming through with some good hits, and I picked up a couple splashable green cards including the (unofficial?) mascot of the cube, Siege Rhino, but ended up deciding not to stretch my mana to accommodate them. I also found a pretty late Uchuulon, and picked it up on the basis of how badly it had wrecked me in Companion Cube. This is what I ended up with:
WB Midrange
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What could be a more 2010s Standard deck than White/Black Midrange? It’s not very pretty, there’s not a whole lot of synergy, just interaction and powerful threats. I have the small reanimator package as well, and arguably the Ashen Rider was a bit too ambitious, but Liliana or ECD bringing back my four or five drops also seemed pretty good to me.
Round 1 was against Joe Anderson, and from some of the table talk I heard he was probably on red-based aggro. This proved to be the case as he came out of the gates fast, and I almost stabilized but unfortunately my Crux of Fate lined up poorly against his board of Phyrexian Dragon Engine and two non-dragon creatures.
Games 2 and 3 both went in a similar fashion where I was able to trade off removal early and land an Uchuulon on turn 4 or 5, and start eating his graveyard to populate my board. This was where the power of the card really started to show, as in game 3 he had a Heirloom Blade on board he could equip to a creature and get it every turn, trade with my Uchuulon token and draw another creature, but as soon as he missed on finding a haster to do this with the Uchuulons multiplied out of control. I fell to a precarious 4 life but Wingmate Roc pulled me back out of burn range and Joe couldn’t close the distance.
Round 2 was against Usman, who was right at the other end of the spectrum, being four colour non-white control, primarily Temur. I’d seen some of his games from round 1 and knew he had a Pyrogoyf I’d have to watch out for. The first game, I inquisitioned him early and saw a Mana Leak. I got down a Currency Converter underneath the Leak, and the rest of the game he left up his counterspells and I just used the Converter to make 2/2s instead of casting any spells, and they eventually overwhelmed him. Having seen a bit more of his deck it had a lot of wheel-spinning and cantrips but seemed very light on ways to close out the game. Game 2 I got a board presence early and he couldn’t keep up with my stream of threats. I think Uchuulon put in another appearance.
The last round was against James on Naya (but mainly green) ramp with the trophy pin on the line. In game 1 he built a scary board quickly, but a Demonic Tutor for Damnation reset things and he never really recovered. Game 2 was slower, but again I had an early sweeper and Uchuulon and Wingmate Roc teamed up to take down the game, the match, and the draft!
Record: 3-0
Overall: 7-5
This was my favourite draft of the event. The vibe was much more relaxed than the others I’d done, the table banter was enjoyable, and Trainmaster was obviously thrilled with the fact he knew so many people at the table, and his excitement was infectious. This was the only cube I played where I played more games for fun after the actual match was done. Walking away with a trophy pin didn’t hurt either.
For the last cube before the cut to top 128, I wasn’t sure what to pick, so I selected a few that sounded interesting and got the Game Objects Cube, a cube all about making stuff on the battlefield. This may have been a mistake as I hadn’t managed to get any lunch due to the long lines at the food trucks, and it proved to be very mentally challenging. As we sat down, a few people were talking about chances to make the cut, and I reckoned if I could get a 2-1 I was in with a chance but I didn’t think it was guaranteed. We were getting ready to draft and there was still an empty seat where my first round opponent should be, and I had dreams of a quick bye, an hour for lunch, and an easy ride to the cut…but the judges found someone to fill and I would have to actually put in some work.
I don’t remember this draft as well as the others, I know I got an early Panharmonicon and took cards in Abzan colours without a clear idea of a direction to go. I first picked Parallel Lives in pack 2 as I assumed it had to be one of the best cards in the cube. Pack three I got back to back Academy Manufactors and a very late Crash the Party which I assume people passed over because it’s a commander card they didn’t know, but it seemed insanely good to me. I also snapped up Uchuulon for the second draft in a row. This is what I built:
Golgari Food n Stuff
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The list is a bit shaky with no real plan beyond “make a lot of artifact tokens and hope that’s good enough”. I was a bit low on ways to actually start off my manufacturing as well, and regretting passing a Tireless Provisioner I’d seen in the draft in favour of a card I don’t think even made my deck.
Round 1 I played against the latecomer Jan, who said he had played the Loam cube in the first draft which had been notorious for games going to time all weekend. His pod had a game go to time in the middle of a player creating infinite turns, and the judge call on when exactly this had happened took a while as well. His name was vaguely familiar to me - I googled him after the match and it turns out he’s a magic streamer called DzyL, who I’ve heard of but hadn’t watched before.
Game 1 I got a few cards into play, while he played an Ornithopter of Paradise and missed a land drop. I tried to Haywire Mite the Ornithopter, but fortunately a player in the game next to us caught that Mite can only hit non-creature artifacts. I only had one green source in play and wasn’t able to pressure Jan enough before he found lands, put some defence together, and eventually Grinding Stationed me out. On the turn I was going to kill his Ornithopter, I also had Pile On available to cast, and in hindsight I should have used that instead. I didn’t know at the time that he was playing four colours, and losing the Ornithopter would have cut him off a lot of cards in hand.
Game 2 went a similar way, I got out ahead early and managed to land a Crash the Party for four Rhinos, but he stabilized behind a 5/5 Gleaming Geardrake and a Karnstruct, eventually Breya turned up to start chipping down my board, and he finished by using Transmutation Font to get Altar of Dementia and feed all his creatures to it to mill my deck.
Round 2 was against Adam on Temur stuff. My deck came together much more in this round, I got to put together Manufactors and Parallel Lives and eventually Crash the Party made eight Rhinos to close out the match.
Round 3 I played against Zephraim on Bant. Game 1 I did my thing, but to save a thousand words on exactly how it went, I’ll just show you my board state at the end:-
The copy tokens are of course Uchuulons.
Game 2 I didn’t do much of anything and Zephraim was putting together Anointed Procession and Doppelgang to beat me up fairly quickly.
This meant that the match came down to game 3, and as it turns out, I was potentially playing for top 128 but didn’t realise it at the time. Unfortunately, at this point my brain sort of gave out - I was able to start putting my engine together, but I made a very bad attack with 3 Uchuulons into some 4/4s, thinking they had 4 power for some reason. My opponent explored and showed a Doppelgang, but I wasn’t able to pressure them enough because of my earlier blunder, they spent a turn building up treasures and then was able to Doppelgang my Parallel Lives, Witch’s Familiar, Academy Manufactor, and their own Nuka-Cola Vending Machine. I could sacrifice the Familiar in response but I really should have hit the Manufactor instead. As it went, my opponent was able to crack one Food token and make about 2000 each of Clues, Treasures and Food, and animate enough with Tough Cookie to easily take the game. If I had to get knocked out of the tournament, that’s at least an impressive way to go.
Record: 2-1
Overall: 8-7
The event on Hedron Network is down now so I can’t check my final position, but I think it was around 170sh.
Right after this match, Trainmaster came and grabbed me to try the auto battler cube with gaytransmulldrifter and a friend of hers called Joey, who had also been in the Highball 4k Pod of Dreams earlier. This cube was designed by Ryan Saxe who had talked about it on Lucky Paper Radio the week before CubeCon, and I had been interested in trying it anyway.
The version that had been brought was cloned by Greg aka dinrovahorror, the designer of the Companion Cube, and he was kind enough to go over the rules with us. While the rules made sense, it was quite difficult for me at least to conceptualise what a strategy looked like.
The cube is split into roughly four equal stacks, one for each player. You start with 7 cards in your “pool”, and each round you draw a card to add to your pool and make a treasure token. Then you draw 5 more cards from the pool as a “shop” like an autobattler, and can freely swap between the shop and your pool; alternatively, you can think of it as drawing up to your pool plus 5 cards, then discarding 5. You can spend a treasure token to repeat this process. From what’s left you make a three card hand, choose three basic lands, then play a game against one of the opponents chosen at random, and you take any treasures you have left into that game..
My first matchup was against Trainmaster - I chose Chancellor of the Annex, Collective Brutality, and Migloz, Maze Crusher. I figured Chancellor might mean a spell was countered if Trainmaster had chosen all three drops, then I could discard it to the Brutality to kill a creature and check the hand for answers to Migloz.
Trainmaster’s hand was Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, Flickerwisp, and Sandstorm Salvager. Spoiler alert: this turned out to be the best three card hand any of us had and Trainmaster was undefeated until the very last round.
The loser of each of these games gets a poison counter, and when two people have 10 poison they’re eliminated and the last two play 1v1 until one of them hits 10 poison. Your hand limit also increases by one card every three rounds.
After a few rounds, Trainmaster was clearly ahead, and I think Joey and I were falling behind. Then I found Arena of Glory and Herald of Anguish together, and I’d built up five treasure tokens. My next match was against gaytransmulldrifter, the first time we’d played each other. I started with turn 1 Herald hasted off the Arena, she burst into laughter and conceded on the spot.
It was getting a bit late and none of us had eaten, so we played out a couple more rounds and crowned Trainmaster the winner as he was still only on one poison to our five or six each.
The format was interesting; going into it blind, there was a lot to take in, and like the Microcube it’s the kind of format I feel really starts to get interesting after a few plays when you’re more familiar with the card pool and know the sorts of combos you can try to assemble. That might also help with the speed, it was quite slow as we were all trying to parse what was possible within the constraints of the format.
Sunday morning was more relaxed without any pressure to be at the venue for a certain time, so Jamie, Jon and I had a look round some of the vendors at GameHoleCon, the “parent” con that CubeCon is part of, and there was some cool stuff - I got this t shirt and a second-hand copy of Skull King for $10 as a couple souvenirs.
At the CubeCon hall we managed to put together a 3v3 team draft against some folks from Kansas City: Jay, who’s “Cake and Cubits” cube we were playing with, Levi, and Sage. The cube was wild, it was Vintage power level with playtest cards, some customs like a hybrid Lore Seeker/Cogwork Librarian with specific packs that it added, silver borders, even the hero cards from an event they ran with Theros. I found a Kalamax, the Stormsire early, and went all in drafting around him. I got a couple nice combos, and during deckbuilding Jon pointed out that How to Keep an Izzet Mage Busy and How is this a Par Three make a pretty sweet combo, so that was my main win condition. I didn’t have much in the way of removal though, so I had to hope my value was enough. This was the deck:
Temur Kalamax
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Jamie had built a UW control deck, Jon was on Abzan midrange.
Round 1 was against Levi, who had an Orzhov midrangey deck. Game 1 I lost to turn 2 Pack Rat on the play. Game 2 went super long, I got out to an early start with Kalamax and Harrow for the super ramp, but Kalamax died and then we traded resources for a long time. I found How is this a Par Three with about 3 cards left in my library and was able to mill Levi out with one cast of HTKAIMB.
Game 3 I lost to turn 2 Pack Rat on the play.
Round 2 I played against Sage, who had a BG reanimator deck with Recurring Nightmare, Vaultborn Tyrant, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and The Slayer hero. Game 1 they were able to cheat an Ulamog into play quickly and I couldn’t answer it. Game 2 I was able to put together the HITAP3 and HTKAIMB, milled them down to 1 card left, and the extra turn wasn’t enough for them to finish me off.
Game 3 was one of my favourites of the weekend - I had Kalamax one turn 4, with Harrow and Crop Rotation putting me ahead on lands. Sage got Recurring Nightmare but without anything too scary to put into play, and I was able to whittle down their board with Kalamax attacks and a Legion Leadership to win a combat. On Sage’s next turn they tapped out for a Vaultborn Tyrant, which left me open to tap it with Forenic Researcher (out of the sideboard), play Lier, attack with Kalamax, and before blockers flashback Legion Leadership, copy it to put Kalamax at 32 power, and flashback Abrade to kill Sage’s last creature to get him through.
I was able to watch most of Jamie’s last game against Jay who was playing Oath of Druids. There was a lot of dancing around, Sublime Epiphany showed up for a big blowout, and then Jay Oathed into Combustible Gearhulk as the second to last card in their library for a very funny win. I had to leave to catch my bus back to Chicago, so we weren’t able to play the last round, and left it at a 3-3 tie with a promise of a rematch whenever possible. I had a great time with this cube, the goofy tone was a perfect way to end the weekend, and the Kansas City people were a lot of fun to play with.
Back in Chicago, I had a day before my flight to mooch around and catch anything I’d missed. I was luckier with the weather and had a beautiful day I spent walking by the lake, visiting the planetarium, and finding some souvenirs to bring home in the city. Here’s a couple pictures of the views.
It was a fantastic trip, CubeCon is obviously a labour of love, and everyone there really bought into the spirit of the event. There was a real range of players, from pros to players like me who only really play Cube. The news from last week of Jonathan Brostoff’s death was a huge shock and a loss to the community, and even though I only spoke to him a couple of times it was clear that bringing people together with a shared passion was very important to him. I don’t know what it means for the future of CubeCon, but if it carries on in any way, shape, or form, I’m definitely going back.