[500] CCC - Casual Champions Cube

[ravnic]

There is definitely a downside to it. When you look back there is a post in this thread from about a year ago where japahn points out, that my less enfranchised friend had his artifact deck not working out well because it couldn't decide between being a deck that wants Bomat Courier and one that wants Mindslaver.

That being said, I try to make the drafting and deckbuilding more beginner friendly in other ways. For example, I hugely prefer cards that aren't wordy, I try to avoid one-off keywords and I try to get versions of cards with reminder texts when possible, at least if it's not of a major mechanic with dozens of cards in the cube.

Oh. And regarding Trading Post. Had this in the cube years ago, can't remember anyone picking it ever. Maybe it's just too durdly even for my cube? But yeah, I should look for more payoffs that work with artifact tokens.

 

[ravnic]

I'm doing a very little in between update, just because I already own the new card, the old one hasn't been maindecked so far anyway and it's probably a clean upgrade in terms of synergy potential.



... replaces Aventurous Impulse.

Winding Way is probably a more tempting pick anyway, giving you the option to choose between creatures and lands, and allowing for potentially multiple hits. It also has some synergy potential for dredge and lands decks.

 

[ravnic]

Recently, I've spend too much time to not only track deck statistics but also card statistics. I've checked for the 12 CCC-drafts I've done since I started blogging here, how often each card has been used and gave it points according to tze number of matches it has won. Sure, that's not super accurate, but I can't get GIHWR like 17lands. And it's still fun and somewhat insightful.

However, there were a few insights that really, really surprised me. So, here are ...

My top 5 surprises of underdrafted cards and/or underperformers.

Spoiler: #5

Maindecked: 1
Points: 0

When I added this guy about two years ago, I was a little scared, he could be too good. Now, he didn't do anything special yet. He has only ever been played once, and that was in the hands of someone doing his first draft ever. I'll definitely keep an eye out for him to maybe try him myself in a coming draft.

Spoiler: #4

Maindecked: 0
Points: 0

I was very hyped when I added this great sac outlet to green, at the same time I added Feldon. Not sure if it was maybe played once before I started tracking, but still, that's surprisingly little play for a card that could've been a part of many G/x midrange/token/graveyard decks.

Spoiler: #3

Maindecked: 3
Points: 1

I refuse to believe this card to be bad before I have at least ten times as much data. It used to be good before I tracked and had the bad luck of being in two of the worst decks (0-3) of the twelve most recent drafts. I want to see it in focused madness, dredge or even token decks, while it has been in some really chaotic 3-4 colores lists.

Spoiler: #2

Maindecked: 0
Points: 0

Another card I'd say is a bit of a power outlier, yet it didn't see play. That can only be the result of bad luck, because there were successful madness and dredge decks that would've loved Vengevine.

But there was an even bigger surprise.

Spoiler: #1

Maindecked: 0
Points: 0

How can a card that flexible and popular not make a single deck in twelve drafts? This right here is what motivated me to now seed a handful of underdrafted cards in draftpools from now on. I mean, even when we draft with only 4 or 5 people, we do packs in a way that at least 260 cards are seen. Kinda crazy to think that Thraben Inspector was almost never in a draft pool apparently, ot it must have made some lists at least.

 

[Schafkurai]

An explanation for Thraben Inspector could also be that it was picked very early but the player then switched colors putting it in a perpetual Sideboard state ! And since its (usually) so popular you would not see it late/wheel it to make more decks.

 

[ravnic]

That is certainly part of it's 'bad luck', but it can't be the whole story. Other popular, firstpickable 1- drops have better ratings, e.g. Birds of Paradise which has been used 5 times and earned 9 points. But then, there are also similar cases, e.g. Llanowar Elves with 2 points from a single use. We'll be drafting this cube again coming saturday, and even though we'll be back to smaller group of 4-5 people, I still hope for some new impressions

 

[ravnic]

Finally, I got another draft with my regulars done. It was also the first time I secretly seeded some cards into the draft pool. But I can't say it went exactly as I hoped ... but first, here are the results.

1. Mono Aggro 3-0 (6-2)


Sami winning another draft once again, this time with a classic monocolored strategy: Turning red cards sideways. While it went 3-0, two of his rounds were very, very tight 2-1s that could've easily went into the other direction. In the third game against my golgari deck he won on a stalled board because he could cast Blast from the Past to my face with flashback SEVEN times before I could punch through his Goblins.


2. Mono Aggro 2-1 (5-4)


Yay, Thraben Inspector doing some work. That being said, we have another mono white deck overperforming, but this one doesn't even look great to me and was in a contested color, so ... I don't know. Maybe it's just that Anthem effects are really, really good in this environment? Glorious Anthem and Canyon Jerboa felt like the worst things to come down, sitting on the other side of the table.

After the draft, Tobi had a revelation when I told him, he could've splashed one mountain to occasionally get the free burn spell of the adventure side of Heartflame Duelist. Always cool to have your less experienced drafters level up while cubing.


3. Lifegain Aggro/Midrange 1-2 (3-5)


I think Denise here tried to draft mono white as well for some time and then moved to black. Both colors were relatively contested, so she ended up with a deck worse than last time. After - naturally - failing in some drafts where she experimented with different decks, she went back to her comfort zone recently with white lifegain decks and not drafting fixing (at least she then took out Gargoyle Castle and Quicksand).

I wish I could get her just a liiittle more invested into the game so she would be willing to take the next steps.

That being said ...

4. Sacrifice Midrange 0-3 (3-6)


... she beat my wonderful golgari sacrifice deck. Just like everyone else. I got to try out FIVE cards that hadn't been drafted before (Varolz, Vengevine, Thelonite Hermit, Mother Bear and the new Tribune of Rot) and I couldn't do them any justice. I had a very tough matchup against the two monocolored aggro decks and then some bad luck and trouble with fliers against the orzhov deck. I quickly took out my Carrion Feeder this draft, even replaced Den Protector with Wasteland Viper as a cheap blocker, but I didn't really have great tools against all that aggression.

That being said, I won a game in every match and most of the before untested cards played very well. I got Vengevine back for 0, made creatures massive with Varolz and stabilized the board with the Hermit. There is definitely a good deck here, maybe it even was this one, just on the wrong day.

What really bothers me is that the untested five cards will now be noted with 0 points out of 1 game, that'll look horrible, even though it of course doesn't have to mean much


In the end I was a little sad. I would've loved to at least win one round with those underdrafted cards in a deck like I never really drafted before (green in a sacrifice build). Now I can't wait for the next draft, even worse than before lol


Newly added card observations:



... was so good, I have to keep an eye on it. Sometimes it just played as : draw two cards + get a 4/5 ...



... played pretty well. I think this guy is just right for my cube's power level.



... no doubt this card is poerful. Probably even among the higher ends of my power band. I'd still prefer some cool creature that triggers of noncreature spells explicitly I think.



... had a hard time being more than a Centaur Courser against all those aggressive decks, but when I attacked, he made a saproling and that was cool.

 

[ravnic]

Summer Update Pt. 1

Yeah, I know, it's not july yet, but I want to post this now. I've thought about my cube quite a lot when I was collecting data and I couldn't help myself. This is eleven cards, so I could change up to four more cards, according my self-imposed rules of only updating twice each year and never more than 15 cards.

Out:


In:


White is overperforming a litle bit more than I'd like it to, especially blink and token decks are really, really good. And Party Captain and Hoplite are always showing up in these decks. Hoplite won 36 from 61 games, a 59% win rate, the Captain 19 from 24, a freaking 79% win rate (Although a smaller sample size). I just want to add the Knight and the Tote as support for blink/tokens and devotion that are more tame or work better with weaker themes. And the Exemplars, if not proving too good, are just more fitting for white prowess,which often has a bunch of artifacts and enchantments.


Out:


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In blue, I just wanted something that helps green/blue and mono blue a little bit to compete, as these decks are showing up less than other two-colored or mono colored decks respectively. And I think I found a good solution with a blue removal spell that feels like still fine in blue for my inner old fogey.


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In:


While aggro decks were doing very, very well, black as a whole could've done a little bit better. So adding a boardwipe seemed like the perfect solution. This also reestablishes the old CCC-combo with Dusk Urchins. And I get the graveyard filling from Ransack with the new Leech. I'm loosing a sac outlet for artifacts here, but I found one for colorless. You'll see further down.


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I mentioned already that red based aggro decks were doing a little too well. While the Goblins winrate of 55% wasn't crazy, it definitely feels like the most scary red two-drop. War Marshall keeps the token synergies alive and is available in a retro frame, yeah.


Out:


In:


MH3 was kind to green. I finally got a juicy green fatty with a relevant landfall ability, that fits my cube's power level. And I could replace my replacement for Adventurous Impulse very quickly. I hope that this little adjustment helps pushing green/blue and black/green decks.


Out:


In:


I'm super excited to try this one out, after I recently discovered that there is a gold-bordered version available between 3 and 4 €. This card is broken in constructed but mostly unplayable in the average cube. But I think the CCC could be exactly the right spot for this classic to shine. I have a lower power level than most cubes still, but also a higher artifact count than most. Yet you never will have the constancy of constructed decks to play him as an aggressive monster. I hope, ravager will be a grindy value card, that eats your trinkets and dying artifacts, and is hard to punish because you can always move it's counters to your Skyscanner. Or think big and have a Triskelion nearby.

I also hope to make the artifact deck a little more attractive with this addition, as cool support cards like Emry or Teshar get passed around the table too often.

 

[ravnic]

Yesterday, I could draft my (for the most part) updated CCC with a total of six people, none of them my "regulars". As a designer it was mostly a success. As a player, not so much

The lists and results:

1. Mono Aggro splash 3-0 (6-2)


This dude has a cube on his own, but he went 0-3 in both a CCC draft and a draft of my Ravnica Block Cube. But not today. He drafted this very nice aggro deck here.

I had a crazy game against this player. I was at 26 life and had six blockers, one of them a 6/6. He then swung with everybody, I thought I had good blocks. Then he flipped both, Blistering Firecat and Gathan Raiders, increased through that Anax' power by five and also pumped his eight attackers with You See a Pair of Goblins. I took 28 damage and lost.

I get a feeling that Rx aggro is a bit too good in the current meta, winning three of the four drafts this year with a 3-0 record.


2. Mono Control 2-1 (5-2)


Another sweet monocolored deck ending up on the second place. I didn't play against them, but I heard them praise their first pick Mutilate. They also had a tight final match against mono red, losing 1-2 only.


3. Artifact Sacrifice Midrange 2-1 (4-3)


Really happy to see so many cool artifact cards that are either new or were underdrafted/underperforming, doing so well this time. A little sad that I could not play against this deck either. But I've heard some good things about Emry, Scrap Trawler and Marionette Master.

It was also really cool when this player started singing MtG-Remy's "Ratchet Bomb" song


4. Midrange 1-2 (3-4)


A little bit of blink, landfall and lifegain synergies came together here and it played as you'd expect from an unfocused deck like that: Just okay. I felt like I was doing very well in both games against this deck and then got crushed by Spitting Image, a card that's in the cubr since forever but rarely saw play in the recent years. I'll keep an eye on it.


5. Spells Aggrocontrol 1-2 (2-4)


I played the first match against this deck, lost 0-2 and was a little surprised to see this deck not winning another game afterwards. I think the U/x spells decks are better if they focus more on the controlling parts, or they need more burn spells for aggrocontrol, not sure.

But what I am sure of, is that Hearth Elemental is quite the power outlier. One turn this player cast the adventure, cast his last card in hand with it on the stack: A Condescend with X=0, so he could scry before he drew, then he played a Flooting, followed by a Hearth Elemental for just . That elemental was then bounced by the Barrin he played, giving him this eot draw. He played a burn spell an then again the Hearth Elemental adventure side, this time empty handed. What a turn.


6. Blink/Pact Midrange 0-3 (1-6)


Yes, I did even worse. But this time, I can explain!

My first pack was not offering a lot of firstpickable stuff so I took a little risk with Llanowar Tribe, second pick Vernal Bloom. I should've just hard forced it, but I saw some packs without green or colorless cards, so I ended up picking stuff like Faith's Fetters, then Flickerwisp came late. With the 'Wisp and Glimmerpoint Stag in my pool, I got another no-green pack and saw Demonic Pact in it. This is when I abandoned my plan A and made some picks where I passed green ramp stuff in favour of fixing, white or green spells.

Then, in seven games I didn't draw the Pact even a single time ...

My deck was not good, but if I would've had the Pact to blink instead of always just Tinker's Tote and Serrated Arrows, I assume I would not have ended up going 0-3.


New card observations



... is now the best Satyr Wayfinder. I'll happily run a slightly better version alongside the satyr though. The ramp makes it really more interesting for many green decks.




This really wasn't great, but it could've been a syndrom of my deck not being great either. It wasn't bad either and maybe this is what I have to do to keep white blink and token decks in check.

 

[ravnic]

Thanks to @Onderzeeboot and his very true remark, I threw all the data I collected based on match wins out of the window. Then I went through all the decklists from the past two years again and collected data based on game wins (there were a couple drafts I had just tracked matches, but I could guess those).

Even after all this work, I can't present you the card data. The reason is, that I decided that it would not make much sense to calculate win percentages for cards that haven't been drafted at least three times (18+ games). So I won't share card based data, BUT ...

I also accumulated deck/archetype based data through game wins. And there are some interesting things to analyze as well:

Mono 16/25 = 64%
Lifegain Aggro 5/9
Aggro 11/16

The bold line shows how, in this case, mono white decks have been doing in general, below are the different kinds of decks drafted in this color or color combination. Mono white has been, as I estimated, very well in the three drafts

Mono 2/6 = 33%
Control 2/6

Blue is probably the hardest color to make work as a mono deck. I still think there is potential here. Or maybe I should replace Drowned Secrets, the weakest payoff with ... Cryptic Command? First I want to see more attempts here.

Mono 14/30 = 47%
Sacrifice Midrange 9/23
Control 5/7

I don't mind the mono color decks being one diemnsional, but mono black having different flavors is pretty cool.

Mono 15/24 = 63%
Aggro 15/24

From the five drafts this year, two were won 3-0 by a mono red deck, another one by a rakdos aggro deck ... a little worried here.

Mono 5/8 = 63%
Ramp 5/8

I think mono green is very good when you get cards like Llanowar Tribe and Vernal Bloom. You just have to do it (looking at myself). But people are used to splash around in green, which is probably often correct even in this cube.

11/26 = 42%
Artifacts Midrange 11/26

These are decks that have at least 15, often more colorless cards, so it felt wrong couting them as a color (combination).

20/33 = 61%
Blink Midrange 20/33

The one deck white/blue has is doing pretty well. But I would like it to have something else going on ...

19/37 = 51%
Dredge Control 4/6
Spells Control 5/9
Ninjas Midrange 6/15
Artifact Midrange 4/7

Dimir is showing azorius how you do it. Many different archetypes getting drafted here, mostly doing well enough. Just Ninjas could do a little bit better.

24/52 = 46%
Sacrifice Aggro 11/28
Aggro 9/15
Wildfire Control 4/9

Rakdos is also doing well, considering my friend Felix drafted it two times (from three drafts) and always went 0-3

9/18 = 50%
Madness Aggro 5/9
Wildfire Control 4/7

I'm fine with what gruul decks are showing. Maybe something like gruul lands or gruul ramp could be a thing too?

15/21 = 71%
Tokens Midrange 6/7
Landfall/Tokens Midrange 9/14

Green/white on one hand is overperforming (I know, small sample size) but it also didn't show much diversity beyond token stuff. I'd like to see more landfall or lifegain decks, I know they're there.

18/41 = 44%
Lifegain Aggro 6/15
Lifegain Midrange 12/26

I didn't expect this color combination to have a great win rate, but I'd hope to at least see more diversity. Orzhov token/sacrifice or orzhov blink decks should be draftable.

17/31 = 55%
Dredge Ramp 7/8
Sacrifice Midrange 3/9
Midrange 3/6
Landfall Midrange 4/8

It looks like golgari is doing mighty good here, but it's rate is carried mostly by that one dredge/ramp deck that still had the massive power outlier Lotus Cobra in it.

6/15 = 40%
Landfall Midrange 6/15

Tatyova, Benthic Druid makes people go into landfall/ramp-ish decks, but then they usually ad a color for removal. I'm fine with that, but I am sad to not see anything like simic madness or drege decks here. I remember those decks to feel pretty strong before I started tracking.

12/27 = 44%
Spells Control 6/15
Spells Aggrocontrol 2/6
Spells Madness Midrange 4/6

Izzet looks also more mono thematic than I hoped, but at least you can see traces of it's madness capabilities.

8/19 = 42%
Spells Aggro 5/9
Aggro 3/10

I hope I fixed this guild with my winter update introducing borowess. There should als be something like a token aggro deck here, focusing heavily on going wide.

5/16 = 31%
Midrange 3/7
Spells Control 2/9

Since I don't care for three color decks kn particular, I also don't care about that horrible win rate.

5/9 = 56%
Blink Midrange 3/3
Blink Control 2/6

At least some proof that black as a third blink color isn't a total failure.

4/6 = 66%
Wildfire Control 4/6

Cool to see wildfire decks in three different color constellations.

19/32 = 59%
Landfall Ramp 7/9
Loam/Madness Midrange 5/8
Madness Midrange 7/15

Oooh, that's were the gruul lands and simic madness decks went. Temur is by far the most drafted tricolor deck.

3/14 = 21%
Blink Midrange 1/7
Midrange 2/7

It's just two drafts, but so far Abzan could've barely done worse

7/15 = 47%
Dredge Midrange 3/8
Midrange 4/7

Sultai is probably my favorite tricolor combination. So I am glad to see that it's one of the six three color decks that showed up.

I will now think very hard and very long about this very limited data and decide wether I will spend my four remaining update slots for this summer on correcting some of the issues I have with it.

 

[Nanonox]

A lot of data that helps see trends of a bigger picture. What jumped out at me is that sacrifice decks seem to be really struggling:
3/9, 11/28, 9/23 total of 23/60 = 38%!

There seems to be a lot of fodder and sacrifice outlets, but not many payoffs for sacrificing stuff. Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim and Juri, Master of the Revue.

I think that the payoffs are important because you are losing board position when sacrificing stuff so you need some compensation. In light of the data, I'd consider adding a sacrifice payoff. Dark Prophecy? Falkenrath Noble? Grim Haruspex?

 

[ravnic]

In light of the data, I'd consider adding a sacrifice payoff.

You are so right, thanks for helping me understand the message of that data I've collected there. I am going to give Grim Haruspex a try. I don't like that it triggers only of nontokens, prefer the 'once a turn'-clause on stuff like Morbid Opportunist, but I like that the Haruspex adds another morph, now that we probably wont get new ones.

I am also going to add Unlucky Witness, which should help the rakdos sacrifice decks more than anything else.

Another thing I want to try is to diversify decks. I've been thinking of replacing Brago with Malcantor, Purity Overseer, as that would still be nice for blink decks but also communicate azorius artifacts a little louder.

 

[ravnic]

Summer Update pt. 2

I think I found four more cards to change in order to improve the cube according to my goals.

Out:


In:


Drowned Secrets was never a good choice for the handful of cards that should push you towards mono blue and blue needs these cards to be tempting more than any other color. Excited to add this high-agency classic card.

Out:


In:


Black was already a little heavy on removal effects before I decided to add Accursed Marauder with this update. So I decided to cut the one removal spell with the least synergy potential in my current cube meta and use this slot to help struggling sacrifice decks.

Out:


In:


Like I stated in my analysis before, was really just blink. My hope is that this one change might be enough already to create a bit more variance for this color combo by making artifact decks more tempting.

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This one might need some explaining. I did add Insurance just a few months ago and it had no chance to prove itself. But it had from the beginning two strikes against it: 1. It further contributes to token creep with a different spirit – and there are a couple cards where it is relevant that the spirits are white AND black. 2. I want this cube to be the most powerful meta where Nightmare is playable. To make sure that isn't as low as you would think, I pay attention to some things like making a lot of the removal toughness or mv based so that a 6-mana ~7/7 flier is harder to remove. Or, and that is the case here, massively reduce the amount of tokens with flying and reach so that Nightmare gets through or at least eats a real creature.

Then lets talk about Cauldron Haze. For some reason I ignored this card the roughly speaking 200 times I was searching for playable hybrids (to support monocolor, not only but also to support Nightmare).

But the haze is actually pretty good. I went through my list and 162 of my 262 creatures would be bettered returned with a -1/-1 counter than replaced by a 1/1 flying. I know it doesn't draw a card and doesn't work with tokens, but I think the potential for cool plays and stories beats the better floor on insurance. It could also help to make black more of a thing in the blink decks. Yes, haze is a hybrid, but it is so cool with sac outlet + etbs. And it is neat that you can blink/bounce the creatures to get rid of there -1/-1 counters. It's just such a crafty card, I like that actually better than "I get a bunch of spirits".



That makes for 15 cards total. Now I won't touch anything before ~january, unless they print the ultimate slam dunk in between.

 

[ravnic]

There are two little updates here. One is of course my Bloomburrow emergency update (since I usually only add new stuff twice a year). The other is a draft result. In between while I was studying for my exams, I did a couple drafts with my gf. We drafted four decks and over the course of several weeks, played all of them against each other. I'm not posting the lists, but here are the results for compleation's sake:

1. Landfall Midrange 3-0 (6-1)
2. Abiding Grace Lifegain 2-1 (5-3)
3. Mono Aggro 1-2 (2-4)
4. Landfall/Dredge Midrange 0-3 (2-6)

Important takeaway: Straight up simic might not be too bad after all.


So, now to my Bloomburrow updates. As mentioned before, I only update my cube beyond my 15-cards-in-january-15 cards-in-july-rhythm when they print a real slam dunk, something that I always wanted, or that is a very obvious 1-for-1 upgrade. The last time this happend was with LCI giving me Volatile Wanderglyph, the first red two-drop that rummages on attack.

Now Bloomburrow has 4 cards like this ...

Out:


In:


I hate the UB frame, Frying Pan added another unique token and it wasn't even that great of a card. I'll gladly replace it with this bat, hoping it will feel like a 4-mana Serra Angel when you're doing the thing. I wish we would've gotten more choices with gain-or-lose triggers though.

Out:


In:


I've been looking for a cool flying men+ in this slot since ... a log time ago. I really like Pteramander, Thousand-Faced Shadow and Faerie Seer, as they all fulfill other jobs to some degree. Sailor was just a placeholder compared to them. And the bird here is not only a super flexible flying men, it also gives me a chance to add the woodland showcase frame to my cube.

Out:


In:


Okay, this one isn't a 1-for-1 trade, but two things make this justifiable. First, I've always wanted a blue threshold card. I love threshold as a glue mechanic between selfmill, discard and spellslinging themes and blue does all of that, so now it finally gets the payoff it deserves. Second, I realized that I added a counterspell with both, recent summer and winter update, without cutting any, so I cut the worst one now.

Out:


In:


Dimir Strandcatcher was another placeholder. Mechanically, it was a cool card, but it had a very akward multiplayer wording and an ugly frame, so I made a proxy version. But I like reducing the number of proxies in my cube as well and this one in particular didn't turn out nicely. So I'm happy to get a real card that fulfills a very similar role. Also, more threshold.

 

[ravnic]

You probably know these Rakdos scam decks from constructed, where you would evoke something sick like Fury and then make it stick and double it's trigger with something like Undying Evil. Of course I would not want that to happen in my lower powered cube, but maybe a version of it could be fun? Something like "fair scam"?

I already run a few potential enablers:



But my only evoke target currently is a lonesome Briarhorn. But I think there are a few more possible targets at my power level:



Then I could add a few more enablers like ...




Could this be fun? It is very hard to interact with, that makes me a little hesitant. But it could also feel very rewarding to pull such a combo-esque play. And it could add another dimension to some decks with just a few picks. I mean, I have four month to think about this. But would you like to have something like this in cube at the CCC's power level?

 

[LadyMapi]

Flickering Mulldrifter is damn fun, so I think it'd work.

Do you think scamming an Aethersnipe or Shriekmaw would be too strong for your format?

 

[ravnic]

Recently, I had an epiphany. I came up with a new 2-player draft format, that is fast, easy to grasp and allows for all the important dynamics we like in our drafts. I call it The Two Towers. I will probably write more on it, but here in my CCC's thread I want to focus on the first actual test with another human.

So, I sat down with my girlfriend. Between us two piles of 100+ random cards, face up, so that you can see the top card each. She than had to make a choice. She could either take one of these two top cards; or she could, once for her turn decide to burn them both, then chose one of the new two top cards. Then it's my turn, and so on. We did this procedure 45 times (I laid my picked cards out in colums of 10/10/10/10/5, so it was super easy to track). The draft was very quick, less than 15 minutes, because we just had to chose between two (or three, technically) options. And there was tension in whennto hate on cards amd deny the opponent a certain pick. The decks, however, ended up pretty close in power level to what we get from a full table.

Here are the lists:

Artifact Control


I firstpicked a Cranial Plating and then just went where the cards led me. Cool to see a control version of the artifact deck coming together.

Mono Landfall splash


My girlfriend kind of forced mono green here. I don't think this draft format will be always just first pick and force it, but it is good that you can do this I guess?

The "figure out what's open"-part from regular drafting is of course not there, but I don't think there is a 2-player-format that has it. And since you know what the opponent is going for, there are some interesting decisions when to take a card so they can't OR burn two (or not). We both ended up with a few hatepicked cards in our sideboards, that the other would've wanted, but not too many.

The games:

game one I went with turn one artifact, turn two Goblin Engineer, search up Skyscanner, and got so many cards from it. All I had to do was to answer every relevant threat with my mardu removal suite and then I won with some random dude carrying Cranial Plating. Artifacts 1-0 Landfall.

game two wasn't my best start and my girlfriend could always come up with another threat. In the end, she had a Tireless provisioner and Kamahl on the board, could untap and animate two lands for a huge pump. I managed to survive that swing but then died soon after it. Artifacts 1-1 Landfall.

game three was super close. In the last round, I needed to get her dead before she could swing with her two giant wurm tokens. I managed to draw an extra card with Skyscanner and found the Cranial Plating, equipping it to my tiny flier for the win. Artifacts 2-1 Landfall.

I'd call this a success. I'll need more testing though.

Flickering Mulldrifter is damn fun, so I think it'd work.

Do you think scamming an Aethersnipe or Shriekmaw would be too strong for your format?

I think Mulldrifter is already too much with blink. It's just so crazy. Shriekmaw violates my 'if it kills stuff of any size and has no real downside it has to cost three'-rule for removal. Scamming Aethersnipe would probably be fine though. Good call.

 

[ravnic]

Yesterday, we had a couple over that we met at the Bloomburrow prerelease. They helped us out when our train was cancelled and to thank them, we invited them for dinner – and magic, of course.

So far they have been playing mostly the format I don't want to mention in my thread, but they weren't averse to try out cube. So what we did was team sealed. Nine packs of 15 cards for each team, then build two decks from it. This way, the teams could work together and I could also help them a little bit.

Here are the lists:

Madness Control


It actually took me the longest to finish my deck after I agreed with my gf to her doing mono green, because it was tough to figure out the right configuration from the left overs. I went with something I've never done before, a real control version of the madness deck, and beat him 2-0 and her 2-1.


Mono Ramp


That was my girlfriend's list. Recently, she really discovered her love for big green decks and she was pretty happy with how this one turned out. She lost to him with a close 1-2 but beat her similarly close with 2-1.


Dredge Control


Interesting deck here from Julian, utilizing cards like Rise from the Tides and Bond of Insight, that come from the spells theme to decent success. However, the deck was lacking removal to be a good control deck and it was often too slow to be anything else really. I beat it three times, actually, with my madness deck, where Necrogoyf was helping me more than him. But in two games against Denise' ramp deck, she had a clunky start and he could fill up his 'yard quickly to overcome her fatties.

Lifegain Midrange 0-2


That was Sarah's deck, apparently she likes lifegain trigger fests as well. Just like with the previous list, there are a couple cards I don't really think fit here, like Fountain of Ichor, but it worked well enough to her winning a game each 1 vs 1 match and then ...


we did a bonus round, 2 vs. 2, kinda like 2HG, but slightly different, and in this game the lifegain deck dominated. Cleric Class was mvp and made creatures huge. My team didn't have any removal spells to answer 7/7 fliers and such, between burn and ... a single Eaten by Piranhas. I'm not really a fan of multiplayer game play in magic, but I was happy to give our new friends a chance to have their decks really shine.

This was a lot of fun and I really hope not the last time we got together in this constellation to cube

 

[ravnic]

Yesterday we did a 4-person-draft with my core regulars and ... it wasn't quite as awesome as usual. And that was kinda on me. You will see when I show the decklists:

1. Abiding Lifegain Midrange 2-0-1 (5-2) - the 1 is a draw


That was my deck and it somehow won the draft despite being in two contested colors. It also really just felt like a mediocre version of the lifegain deck but the Abiding Grace package carried it in many games. I lost two games, one where I didn't have AG and one where it got destroyed. When it stuck, I made so many squirrels with Nested Shambler.

2. Mono Artifact Sacrifice Midrange 2-1 (5-3)


My favorite deck of the evening. My cool theory of having monocolored artifact decks appear by combining colorless cards and cards of a single color is no longer just a theory. It also worked out pretty well and thus I'm happy. Cards like Marionette Master, Clockwork Servant and Arcbound Ravager can make this even work with mono blacks usual sacrifice strategy – even though the Ravager wasn't drawn at all. I beat this deck but was pretty lucky to do so.

3. Aggro 1-2 (3-5)


Denise drafted this aggro deck, looks good but would need some micro-synergies to really pop. In gruul aggro decks that usually means madness, but I feel like she still doesn't feel comfortable with that mechanic and playstyle. I guess I know what my next lesson for her will be

4. Midrange 0-2-1 (2-5)


Two losses and one draw. A sacrifice deck with only one sac outlet. Tobi recently admitted, that he still decides on a specific deck very early on in the draft and than just stays there stubbornly. That might a the reason for this not so great result, but it wasn't the only one ...


General Problem:
I didn't shuffle the cube well enough, apparently. There were some heavily color skewed packs and I felt like there was very little blue in the draft pool overall. That made it very tricky, at best, to get an idea what's open and led to a weird draft where only one person was picking anything in the temur range really.

So I decided to do seeded packs from now on. 71% of my cube are monocolored cards. For 15 card packs, that 10.65 cards. From now on a 15-card pack will have two cards per color and then two out of three packs will have an additional mono card of a random color. The rest will be a wild mix of multicolor, hybrids, colorless and lands.
Some times we use smaller pack sizes though:
13 cards: 71% is 9.26 cards. I will add two of each color and then randomly remove one from three out of four packs for an average of 9.25. The rest will be agsin a mix of multicolor, hybrids, colorless and lands.
12 cards: 81% is 8.43 cards. I will add to of each color and then randomly remove one for each pack and an additional one for every second pack for an average of 8.5. A bit problematic here that you might end up cutting two cards of the same color thus creating a pack that lacks a whole color again, but at least that's unlikely.


New Card Observations



Now, I had a relatively bad lifegain synergy deck here, but this guy wasn't really pulling it's weight. It won me one game, but so would've any dorky flier.



It was in a deck where it had a lot of potential: Perilous Myr, Chupacabra Echo, Triskelion, Zulaport Cutthroat, Marsh Flitter, Ravenous Rats ... but it didn't perform. For now, I'll just put this on the deck not really performing in general.

 

[Schafkurai]

I've been employing a shuffling method that I found in a 9 year old reddit post and it's been working very well for me so far:

https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgcube/s/kYJ4gUHBqI

I like it because it's a mix between full on seeding packs and totally random. Also it's easy to use, if you change pack sizes, as you basically end up with one stack of cards for each color, that contains roughly 50% of that color and an assortment of other colors/types.

I'm sure by now it's not a "novel" method anymore, as the title implies, but it did age well in my opinion. I hope it's useful for you .

 

[ravnic]

Little Duskmourn update

As I stated before, I only change my cube twice each year (january and july), but I allow myself little upgrades when I get some new cards in between that van replace cards with placeholder status.


... replaces Chupacabra Echo

The Echo has already proven to be just as good or better than Nekrataal was, which I once cut for being a little too much as an etb on a still relevant body. And I was literally just waiting for the next decent black enchantment removal spell.



... replaces Rabbit Battery

I wasn't in love with the battery as the only reconfigure card in the cube anyways, but I kept it for it's artifact type. Now I don't have to anymore. And I can push the sacrifice deck a little bit with this monkey toy, which I just got as a foil in my prerelease pool.



... replaces Silver Bolt

Flash is an actual upside here. Especially for something like mono blue, holding up counter magic; a deck that would actually want a mediocre but playable, colorless removal spell.

 

[ravnic]

Because of this thread, I had an idea. Why not have jumpstart lists for and from my cube? Since I have my cube sorted by color for seeding purposes now anyway, I could also quickly throw these together at any time where drafting isn't a real possibility. It's also a great opportunity to force some underdrafted cards on people lol

Lifegain

Creatures (7) 1 Leonin Vanguard 1 Healer's Hawk 1 Famished Paladin 1 Ajani's Pridemate 1 Syndic of Tithes 1 Seeker of the Way 1 Wax-Wane Witness Noncreatures (5) 1 Sylvok Lifestaff 1 Shelter 1 Dawn of Hope 1 Path of Bravery 1 Faith's Fetters

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Plains

Tokens

Creatures (5) 1 Doomed Traveler 1 Cathar Commando 1 Wall of Omens 1 Mentor of the Meek 1 Geist-Honored Monk Noncreatures (7) 1 Portable Hole 1 Raise the Alarm 1 Spawning Pit 1 Glorious Anthem 1 Touch the Spirit Realm 1 Promise of Bunrei 1 Cenn's Enlistment

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Plains

Spells

Creatures (1) 1 Talrand, Sky Summoner Noncreatures (11) 1 Levitating Statue 1 Brainstorm 1 Opt 1 Mana Leak 1 Chart a Course 1 Into the Roil 1 Snakeform 1 Deep Analysis 1 Bond of Insight 1 Gush 1 Rise from the Tides

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Island

Ninjas

Creatures (9) 1 Faerie Seer 1 Mockingbird 1 Thousand-Faced Shadow 1 Ninja of the Deep Hours 1 Moon-Circuit Hacker 1 Soratami Cloudskater 1 Man-o'-War 1 Filigree Familiar 1 Moonblade Shinobi Noncreatures (3) 1 Sleight of Hand 1 Counterspell 1 Mask of Memory

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Island

Sacrifice

Creatures (8) 1 Carrion Feeder 1 Accursed Marauder 1 Reassembling Skeleton 1 Zulaport Cutthroat 1 Grim Haruspex 1 Nantuko Husk 1 Marsh Flitter 1 Gravedigger Noncreatures (4) 1 Cauldron Haze 1 Do or Die 1 Withering Torment 1 Scroll of Fate

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Swamp

Dredge

Creatures (9) 1 Festerleech 1 Sinister Starfish 1 Mire Triton 1 Order of Midnight 1 Stinkweed Imp 1 Cadaver Imp 1 Mind Drill Assailant 1 Canoptek Tomb Sentinel 1 Necrogoyf Noncreatures (3) 1 Disfigure 1 Blood Fountain 1 Haunted Crossroads

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Swamp

Madness

Creatures (8) 1 Blazing Rootwalla 1 Bomat Courier 1 Burning-Fist Minotaur 1 Volatile Wanderglyph 1 Anje's Ravager 1 Gathan Raiders 1 Reckless Wurm 1 Anger Noncreatures (4) 1 Faithless Looting 1 Fiery Temper 1 Abrade 1 Malevolent Whispers

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Mountain

Prowess

Creatures (6) 1 Gingerbrute 1 Monastery Swiftspear 1 Firebrand Archer 1 Heartfire Immolator 1 Goblin Cratermaker 1 Spellgorger Weird Noncreatures (6) 1 Firebolt 1 Livewire Lash 1 Magma Jet 1 Reckless Impulse 1 Act of Aggression 1 Disintegrate

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Mountain

Ramp

Creatures (8) 1 Arbor Elf 1 Llanowar Elves 1 Prosperous Innkeeper 1 Werebear 1 Nantuko Vigilante 1 Ant Queen 1 Krosan Tusker 1 Roar of the Wurm Noncreatures (4) 1 Rampant Growth 1 Mind Stone 1 Awakening Zone 1 Overgrowth

Lands (8) 1 Prismatic Vista 7 Forest

Lands

Creatures (5) 1 Aftermath Analyst 1 Grazing Gladehart 1 Thrashing Brontodon 1 Penumbra Spider 1 Territory Culler Noncreatures (5) 1 Emergent Sequence 1 Life from the Loam 1 Sword of the Animist 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Crawling Sensation

Lands (9) 1 Treetop Village 1 Tranquil Thicket 1 Prismatic Vista 6 Forest

Artifacts

Creatures (5) 1 Arcbound Ravager 1 Goblin Engineer 1 Millikin 1 Tough Cookie 1 Skyscanner Noncreatures (7) 1 Adventuring Gear 1 Chromatic Star 1 Pacification Array 1 Talisman of Curiosity 1 Key to the City 1 Mirrodin Besieged 1 Mystic Forge

Lands (8) 1 Silverbluff Bridge 1 Prismatic Vista 1 Karplusan Forest 1 Quicksand 1 Island 1 Mountain 2 Forest

Demonic Pact

Creatures (3) 1 Thraben Inspector 1 Kor Skyfisher 1 Glimmerpoint Stag Noncreatures (9) 1 Sunlance 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Duress 1 Talisman of Hierarchy 1 Mazemind Tome 1 Night's Whisper 1 Nature's Chant 1 Last Gasp 1 Demonic Pact

Lands (8) 1 Goldmire Bridge 1 Prismatic Vista 3 Plains 3 Swamp

not sure how I will do this long-term. It's hard to have more than 11 lists without repeating themes too much. Maybe I will just change these lists every few months, maybe I'll find a way to do more or I'll abandon it completely, let's see.

 

[ravnic]

Jumpstart is not easy to manage. It was a huge success so far, as I've already found several situations to get some jumpstart games with 2-4 people in where it would've not been possible to draft. But there is already a list that has proved not to be really functional. The artifact list was too colorful, had a weird curve and needed a higher density of artifacts, so I'm doing a second attempt at it:

Artifact Sacrifice

Creatures (7) 1 Vault Skirge 1 Arcbound Ravager 1 Goblin Engineer 1 Millikin 1 Skyscanner 1 Scrap Trawler 1 Manor Gargoyle Noncreatures (5) 1 Chromatic Star 1 Bear Trap 1 Talisman of Impulse 1 Key to the City 1 Mystic Forge

Lands (8) 1 Silverbluff Bridge 1 Razortide Bridge 1 Prismatic Vista 1 Gargoyle Castle 1 Quicksand 3 Mountain

This has only a single colored card and also gets more artifacts with the other bridge.

 

[ravnic]

So, these two cards are my right away perfect replacements for placeholder cards:



which replace Wax-Wane Witness and Malcator, Purity Overseer. They are both just much better fits for their respective slots.

In addition to what I wrote in the testing and includes thread, I am also eyeing Vampire Gourmand from Foundations. I can't sac a creature instant speed here but it's free and the payoff is really there.

Elfsworn Giant also has a good shot at making my winter update, but we'll see when january comes.