Ana Grid

K

Karshtakavaar

Ana Grid

AnaSanctuary.jpg

Cube Size: 180
Players: 2

Design Goals:
The Ana Grid is a travel cube designed for my partner and I, featuring the cards and strategies we most enjoy.
As a result, it's quite small and kept to a very low budget.
Drafting is meant to be simultaneously skill-testing and reward paying attention to your opponent, but also always result in a playable deck.
Games are intended to be quick, with no chance of board stalls.
This is why the cube is only three colours, and features a strong manabase.
Despite this, mono-colour decks should be not only possible, but powerful.
Three -colour decks should also suffer real consequences for their greed.

Cards:
Pet cards come first - these form the backbone of the list and are as close to non-negotiable as I'll ever get (See 2nd post for a list)
Symmetry is next - all three colours and guilds have exactly the same number of representatives
Each colour also has a pair of triple-pipped 3-drop spells and a pair of devotion spells to reward managing to stick to mono-colour.
Each guild has triple-pipped 3-drop hybrid spell to further help with devotion.
There are a number of effects which care about basic land types present in your mana base.
There are powerful non-basic utility lands to reward going mono-colour.
To unify the cube, a self-mill theme was chosen and is present in all colours. Almost all forms of card advantage fill or empty the graveyard. This also helps keep games quick, as decking is a real threat.
Almost all counterspells are limited or come with drawbacks that lead them to being more archetype-specific rather than generically strong - this is to make up for the triple threat of Daze/Gush/Mystic Sanctuary that U has access to.
A lot of the fixing costs life, and there are a lot of ways of keeping your opponent of their colours if they don't prioritize fixing, all to punish greedy manabases.
Conditionally strong cards are totally okay - things that might normally be a very very fringe sideboard card are much more main-deckable when you know your opponents entire draft pool. Similarly, colours-matter cards matter a lot more when there's basically a guarantee your opponent is in one or more of those colours.
Similarly, given two cards I would rather include a card that is either matchup defining or stone-cold unplayable over a 23rd 'just playable' that makes it into every deck but is exciting in none of them.

Archetypes:
Mono-U: Tempo fliers or Traditional control
Mono-B: Mana Disruption + Evasion or Self-mill into cost-reduced 5/5's
Mono-G: Devotion Aggro or Self-mill into recursive threats.

Dimir: Traditional control and 2-for-1's or Zombie Tokens.dec
Golgari: Ramp or Recursive midrange
Simic: Flash fliers or Miracle-Gro.

Ana/Sultai: Graveyard Goodstuff.

Tribal: Four iconic tribes feature in the cube: Wizards, Zombies, Faeries and Snakes.
Wizards, while present across all three colours, are most rewarded by going mono-U. The gameplan is to slow the aggressive decks down by tapping down permanents with Frost creatures and Aphetto Grifter, lock out the opponent with Patron Wizard, and then either with with some kind of control finisher or via decking the opponent out.
Zombies, while present across all three colours, are most rewarded by going mono-B. The gameplan is to keep the opponent off their colours by turning their lands into Swamps, removing anything that does make it through, and swing in with evasive threats.
Faeries, while present in blue and black, synergize around self-bounce and only feature one payoff card in Spellstutter Sprite. They should form a part of either a Wizard or Tempo list.
Snakes, while present in blue and green, and do not form a reliable deck. With that said, there are some synergies, and Seshiro the Annointed and Patron of the Orochi both form strong payoffs whether you choose to go wide, or go tall.

Cube Link:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/rxn1

Thanks:
kryss - For the idea
japahn - For feedback and great ideas for inclusions

Would love to hear any thoughts you might have!
 
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K

Karshtakavaar

Themes and Packages
In progress

U

Wizards like tapping down permanents and countering spells, and their two lords let you do this repeatedly; perfect fits for a control shell

Faeries are evasive bastards who love to rebuy ETB's and dodging removal, and so suit a more tempo-oriented game plan.


The counterspells were chosen to disincentivise jamming them all in the one deck, while still having utility outside their targeted shell.

Some truly degenerate lines are available for those who commit to enough Islands.

B

Like their Wizardly brethren, Zombies like a slow game. They'll not do much to make it happen, but between the virtual CA, lifegain, and slow inevitable threat they pose they still have plenty to offer to a controlling shell.


Keep your opponent off their colours, turn off their abilities that care about basic land types, and make all your threats unblockable while you're at it.

Why pay retail?

Jam them Swamps.

G


Not much of a tribe to be honest, but they're all either generically beefy or situationally strong. A turn 4 7/7 can also ruin anyone's day. Winner of "Most likely to make me resort to custom cards" award 2022.


He's so big, and he's only getting bigger.

U/B

Only one of us is getting to play Magic today. I'm going to do my best to make sure it's not you.

You can't just jam two tribes together and hope for the... oh I see. No no, go ahead. Wait, is that Rise from the Tides?

I mean, they're probably doing it to themselves, might as well be neighbourly and help out.

B/G

Card selection while fueling all sorts of shenanigans.

Sadly features neither The Rock nor his Millions. Still attrition-based midrange tho.

U/G

Evasive threats and ways to protect them

Growing lads and ladettes that just need a little love and protection.

B/U/G


Yeah it's not as good when you don't have Runic Repetition and Gnaw to the Bone but I have enough nostalgia to make up for that.


When you just can't make up your mind and want to cast everything. Probably not on curve tho.

Pet Cards
These cards are beloved by my partner or I. They either required the cube to be built around them, or are okay enough to get by without support.
Either way, they're probably not going anywhere. If you want to make a cube like this, start with pet cards - it's a wonderful motivator.

U


B


G


Hybrid/Multi/Colourless
 
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japahn

japahn

This looks great! I really feel the old school spells > creatures vibes here! Looks really well balanced, too. I could not find a single card that looks like a power level outlier to me. I suppose is helps that blue and black are interaction-heavy and keep stuff like Honored Hydra honest.

Have you considered some artifacts that act as glue between tribal themes? For example:


Some other ideas I think would fit well the cube:

 
K

Karshtakavaar

japahn said:
This looks great! I really feel the old school spells > creatures vibes here! Looks really well balanced, too. I could not find a single card that looks like a power level outlier to me. I suppose is helps that blue and black are interaction-heavy and keep stuff like Honored Hydra honest.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback! As much as I like creatures, I do like the old-school 'underdog' feel of fast tempo or aggro decks, where it feels like you're throwing away card quality and advantage to sneak in a win off whatever tempo you can make and hold. I'm very lucky that my partner only likes Faeries and UG tempo for creature-based decks, and otherwise likes to outvalue people, so we both get to be happy.
So far it's felt balanced, but I do worry about the mono-green deck being a little feast-or-famine.

japahn said:
Have you considered some artifacts that act as glue between tribal themes? For example:

Adaptive Automaton
Metallic Mimic
Icon of Ancestry
Click to expand...

Metallic Mimic and Adaptive Automaton are absolute all stars in my main cube (More the Mimic than the Automaton, but I love the awkward middle child anyway), though I hadn't considered the Icon of Ancestry. I've been thinking about cutting Perpetual Timepiece since it's not really done what I was hoping (Suuper lategame card for one grindy or control deck to outvalue another), and Mimic or Icon make good replacements. Might cut the Sphinx of the Guildpact too.
One of the things that has restricted inclusions, particularly in the artifacts, are my partner's pet cards - stuff like Perilous Myr and Filigree Familiar aren't going anywhere, and it was a tough enough job having Relic of Progenitus and Perpetual Timepiece over Wand of Vertebrae - which is for some reason beloved. I should update the OP with a "Pet Cards" section...

japahn said:
Some other ideas I think would fit well the cube:

Cabal Interrogator
Tomebound Lich
Ongoing Investigation
Probe
Life // Death
Click to expand...

I really really like the Cabal Interrogator, that's a great idea and will go in as soon as I get a copy (And work out what to cut).
Tomebound Lich would probably take the slot of Lazotep Chancellor if it was to come in - Gleaming Overseer is just too good with Rise from the Tides to take out - but that's a hard decision to make tbh. Maybe over Dimir Charm?
Ongoing Investigation is an interesting idea - I don't know if the UG tempo decks will want to play it early but they might like it as a safety net, and it does work outside that theatre. While I played a bit of SoI limited I don't have strong memories of this card, and I don't think I've seen it anywhere else, so I don't have a good gauge on it.
Thanks for making me take a second look at Probe - definitely in over Mystical Teachings which really doesn't have any slam-dunks to grab. Definitely after more ways to fuel the GY in {U}.
While it's 100% better than Destined//Lead, I was a little worried about Life//Death being too good? If the Sphinx comes out there's one less nasty thing for it to reanimate early, and it'd just be grabbing vanilla 5/5s or the occasional Patron of the Orochi, and the all-in side of Life is harder to blowout. Destined is also weakened by the lack of other black combat tricks (And the lack of a solid black aggro curve). Will make the switch.
 
ravnic

ravnic

That looks like a really sweet and well balanced cube to me. One queestion arises though: How is the mana disruption playing out? Is the whole "enchanted land is a swamp" thing mostly an enabler for the swampwalk givers or is it close to land destruction? The issue I have with land denial is, that it either doesn't work or works too well, at least that's how I feel about it.
 
K

Karshtakavaar

It's interesting you mention those, as they were a hail-mary attempt to support a pet card of mine (Zombie Trailblazer.dec used to tear up my friends kitchen tables) and have actually gotten some play.
We've only gotten two RL drafts in with the list at the moment, neither of which were after the changes documented in the last post (My partner and I are -swamped- with work ATM, but we're hoping to get a lot of reps in during an upcoming holiday), but based on my incredibly limited sample size, it's doing something. Whether I'd encourage others to copy that something is up in the air.

It has been pretty swingy in terms of its impact, which is totally to be expected, the fact you have perfect information during the draft does play into interesting decisions about the enchantments. They are just LD against the fast decks - Think Spreading Seas vs Jund in Alara standard. There have been two games where it straight up won the game, and several where it was irrelevant.

First draft my partner went UG tempo, I went mono B. Turning off a Waterlogged Grove with Evil Presence on t1 was critical in game 1, and Zombie Trailblazer letting Lazotep Reaver and its token turn the only blue sources into swamps on upkeep for three turns in a row won game 3 - getting damage in with the lord all the while. Admittedly, I was on the play both games, which did help. While I did draw a Contaminated Ground in game 2, it was too late to be worth casting over literally anything else in my hand and I died to a Quickling two turns later.

Second draft, I agressively went for the miracle-gro stuff, and after seeing my partner take two early removal spells I hate drafted a Contaminated Ground and another black card (Don't recall which) as I had the fear in me after the first draft (and really wanted Quandrix Pledge Mage and Wistful Selkie to do their job).
Started building the deck only to realise I had picked up the Aphetto Grifter - intended for mana denial absolutely, but that little bit of extra synergy hadn't been intended. Nevertheless seems like a cool thing for UB control to have access to. The hate draft didn't matter, as I ended up losing 2-0 to a sweet BG Rock deck that probably wasn't going to run the enchantments anyway.

Basically, they seem like they've only been relevant because I went out of my way to have three aggro decks that really care about their manabase (Tempo and Miracle-Gro need their blue sources, Mono-G devotion needs multiple green), nine (9!) triple-pipped spells at 3 CMC, and a ton of double pipped spells.
They have slowed games down, and the swampwalk hasn't come up yet but I fully expect it to. If you're okay with LD, situational cards, and to jump through all the hoops I jumped through (I mean, Cyclopean Giant? Probably too far), it's pretty cool, but the takeaway for me is more "Support your pet cards so they get to shine" than "Tainted Well is basically Spreading Seas and therefore a Good Card (tm)"

Incidentally, they're also my safety valve for Daze, Gush, and Mystic Sanctuary in the control v control matchup, which is my current watchlist of scary cards (Them and T.Cruise). They haven't actually stopped them yet, or any of the other land-type matters effects, but maybe one day....
 
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Karshtakavaar

Cube Update!​

So we're now back from that holiday mentioned in the previous post, and we did indeed get a lot of reps in with the list.
I was tempted to include a full write-up of all the decks drafted and how they performed, maybe some tournament report style recounting of specific fun matches, but I figured it'd be shorter and more to the point as a "lessons learned" style post instead. It's still going to be waaay too long, so I'm nesting spoilers and feel free to only read the bits that are of interest to you. If I get really bored sometime in the next few days I might post a few of those games.

General Lessons:

• I'm pleasantly surprised at how well this cube has played. This is my fourth paper cube, and the third that I'm intending to keep around indefinitely, but all that practice building duplicate sealed piles or janky theme cubes for once-only online drafts has added up. There are changes that need to occur, but there are way way fewer necessary ones than I had anticipated.
• Games are quick! Even "Grindy value deck vs dedicated control deck" can have a match end in like 15 minutes, not including the draft. Big win there as far as I'm concerned. Including a lot of lands that require life payments has done its job, very very happy with that decision and all the gameplay patterns and decision making/sequencing puzzles that have resulted. Really happy with the ways the manabase has played, lots of interesting decision points in very short games is nice, every turn is very relevant. Surprisingly, Cephalid Colliseum is the least powerful of the threshold lands in this cube!
• Amazingly, no games resulted in decking out despite the sheer abundance of self mill. We've gotten close twice, but either unblockable clocks, inevitable value generators, or big haymakers always end a game before that point. That said, the dedicated mill deck has also gone undrafted - and might get cut due to the number of cards that make milling your opponent such a bad idea, unless I add more main-deckable, instant speed grave hate.
• Only two drafts have felt really lopsided in one players favor, one of them had a really obvious poor shuffle of the cube which heavily favoured Green cards appearing together in packs and the other featured aggressive hate-drafting of key pieces of the opponents deck from the mid-point onwards. Not happy about those, as you should get to play actual games after a draft and not just feel like shuffling it up again right after deckbuilding, but there's insufficient data for me to have any ideas on what to do to prevent it in future - beyond shuffling more thoroughly and being cooperative during the draft :p


I won't do a writeup of every card, just the ones that stand out.
Anticognition: Has ended up in tempo more than in control which is really odd to me. No idea what to take away from that? Likely just a matter of sheer chance despite the sample size of drafts.

Confound: Not really needed. UG doesn't need any extra ways of protecting its attackers, it has so many that also help it build a board that this has only once made a main-deck. Cut.

Daze: Love how it's played, the free counter hasn't felt too strong. Going to include another free counter in Confound's slot as I like how Daze has played in every deck it's been included in and mono-U needs a little bump.

Lazotep Plating/Plaxmanta: Amazing A++, getting one of these in opening hand feels so so good.

Probe: Has underperformed a bit. It's hard to commit a turn to it early, and it's only good from ahead on 5 against the faster decks. Against the only other slow deck UB will run into - BG - kicking it just feels bad and has a real risk of wrecking you, so it's ended up being a sorcery-speed Thirst for Knowledge almost every time. A bit sad about that. Cut.

Rise from the Tides: Fighting over this has been draft defining. Playing around it is match defining. Would love another card that plays like this but in B.

Cabal Interrogator: I don't know why I thought this was a spellshaper for so long. It took until the first game where it actually hit the table for me to realise it's not, and then I lost to it preventing me from ever getting to enough of a hand to double-spell past a counter. Then I lost to it again in g2. Then I drafted it and won both games where it got to do its thing. It's played so, so well in the cube. Being both a zombie and a wizard has been very relevant - it's countered spells, it's turned lands into swamps, it's tapped down beefy creatures before combat. Perfect suggestion, it's exactly the right level of complexity and interactivity for the cube and it's getting added to the pet cards.

Stitcher's Supplier/Mire Triton: Their inclusion makes it feel like the mono-B Zombie deck wants something it can do from the yard. Obviously no chance of cutting them as they're needed, but they do make it feel like there's a hole in the cube.

Faerie Macabre: Wizards print another one of these pls.

Darkblast: Just doesn't do anything, the early threats are too good and the dredge to slow. Very sad about this, but it just has to be Cut.

Tainted Well: As much as Evil Presence and Contaminated Ground have pleasantly surprised me with their relevance, this has let me down - for much the same reasons as Darkblast. Cut.

Murderous Cut: There's too much pressure on the GY to ever delve this below 4 mana, so it's a trap. In practice, when cast early it's just disguised the fact you've already lost, and delayed the game for no good reason - even if you do fill your yard fast enough to play it on turn 2 or 3 to deal with some must-answer threat, you've had no time to curate your GY and the forced loss of whatever the whims of fate threw into your graveyard (Or just preventing another delve or GY-matters card from getting cast later on) has always cost the game a few turns down the line. It's backbreaking to have it countered too. It was a hard ask to find a replacement that sits in the sweet spot for this cube, but definitely necessary. Cut.

Urborg Reposession: So so sweet. Makes you feel so safe to aggressively self-mill. Would like some more redundancy here for mono-B.

Mold Adder: Love this guy so much, carries the UG decks. I think I want one more piece of removal that cleanly answers him without invalidating Rhonas's Last Stand to make him feel fairer, but apart from that he's matchup defining where you need him to be without warping every draft. Fortunately, Murderous Cut and Darkblast getting cut gives me an opportunity to solve the issues with this lil guy.

Prowling Serpopard: A necessary evil. It has made me unreasonably annoyed more than once and frankly that's a good thing.

Steel Leaf Champion: Invalidating Rise from the Tides and Spider Spawning was the entire reason for including this. I think it might be too good at that. May replace with Old Growth Troll if it and Serpopard continue to be too good together, but I think I was just a bit too removal light in the games where I ran into them both. If I ever replace it with Chlorophant you'll know I got real angry with Mono-G after one too many beatings.

Sesessan Petitioner: Unplayed. Never makes a main-deck - either devotion is too low for it to be worth a slot, or it's too small a creature to be worth a turn. GB midrange can get the devotion for it, but has enough incidental lifegain and the least pain from its manabase. Cut.

Primal Bellow:Used in the draft to commit to mono-G, but has never been cast even though it makes maindecks prety much every time somone is in the deck. Don't know how to evaluate it.

Sosuke's Summons: Overperformed compared to low expectations. Getting four tokens from it is pretty common, and often enough with how board light some matchups are. Feels great to mill, feels bad to waste a counterspell on. Lets Voracious Typhon attack freely without fear of the crack back, which is the biggest benefit it's had in slow matchups.

Snake Pit: Underperformed compared to very low expectations. Cut.

Patagia Viper: Has overperformed, though I have reservations? Two chump blockers alongside a 4-mana discount on a mid-combat Patron of the Orochi on the following turn has happened, on curve, every time this card has been cast, and it has never run into any of the very abundant counterplay to that specific line. It's somehow been backbreaking every time. It's happened like 5 times. How.

Vineshaper Prodigy: Has made a maindeck once, cast once, and went unkicked. Grizzly Bears would have done the exact same job. Not cut due to lack of other options in its category but as soon as Wizards prints another green card that cares about access to blue mana it's outta here.

Agent of Horizons: Has never made a maindeck. Turns out Steeple Creeper being a Snake, having 1 more power, and being able to Jump to block a faerie matters much much more in the janky decks searching for those last few playables, and the tempo deck really doesn't want to spend mana making a threat evasive when it could instead be spending that mana preventing you from getting to play Magic at all. Not cut due to lack of other options in its category, but I'm eyeing Avid Reclaimer and thinking real hard.

Memory Sluice: So hard to find a window to cast it, and even then milling your opponent has never seemed wise in the matchups where you can conspire safely. Would like to try it in U/B self-mill before I decide whether or not to cut it, because it does set up some strong early plays in that deck.

Slitherhead: Not awful by any means, but definitely underperforming - taking a 2/2 out of range of Cut Down has been its most exciting use. Actively bad in BG aggro as that deck has issues getting to threshold fast enough and doesn't really benefit from a single counter later on when you could be running any one of a number of great Golgari cards over this. Has been solid with Stalker Hag though so that's something. Only mentioning it as I would like more targeted grave hate so I'm very tempted to replace it with DRS. I might be veering to far in the opposite direction powerlevel-wise with that one.

Life//Death: Not too strong as I had feared. Life has been cast a lot more than Death - 3 or 4 extra attackers, even 1/1's, messes with the very tight combat maths enough to just end games. Funny when it ran into Aetherize though.

Shambling Shell: Weakest of the gold cards. It's far from the worst card, but it'd be nice to swap it for something a little stronger. Bit of a shame as I do like it. Not cut yet, but I am reluctantly looking for a replacement

Simic Charm: As I'd hoped, absolute all-star card. Easily the best Simic card in the cube.

Meteor Golem: Massively underperformed so far. It's not worth an entire turn compared to it's competition in Rise from the Tides or Spider Spawning, it's only okay with Death/Vigor Mortis, and there's no flicker effects to abuse its ETB. Probably a cut in the near future.


Lands:
Really happy with the land suite, especially the distribution of pain lands. Llanowar Reborn has been the worst of them, as it goes in the deck that can afford to include a tapland the least, but has been used to take creatures out of range of Cut Down or grow a flier and the pickings are pretty slim for green-producing utility lands so it's fine.

Rather than listing every single deck drafted and doing a full tournament report style commentary for every match we played over a week and a half, I figured id just talk about all the archetypes and packages I've tried to support and how they've done.
U
So uh... against Gx decks this deck cannot win as mono-U. It's incredibly good at stalling out a game for ages, but it has a hard time doing so while building a board, and it's as soon as the opponent gets a threat you can't cleanly deal with (Prowling Serpopard, Filth, Voracious Typhon), or resolves a threat with counters to back it up (Against uG), the game spirals out of control with no "Haymaker" play to close it out. I had been hoping Rise from the Tides would be that haymaker, but it's too easy to miss out on it during the draft or have it hated out from under you. Looking to add an additional wincon in mono-U. Patron Wizard is sweet when you can get a clean turn to resolve it, but man is that a hard ask. OTOH, it's also basically never ended up as mono-U. It's really, really solid in Ub or UB and requires no extra support there.
Spellstutter Sprite is just a flash flier for 1U, and hey that's good enough. Wait, no, it counters Cut Down and Defile and really messes your opponent up on its own. Simultaenously worse and better than I had hoped. The others are all great - They're all doing great work in the same deck, even though the fact that they're all faeries together has never mattered.
The reactive blue cards have largely benefited the UG deck over the UB one, so looking to swap out one or two counterspells that were intended for tempo for some more generically okay ones - goodbye Confound. Lazotep Plating and Plaxmanta did everything you wanted to do but better.
Daze Gush Mystic Sanctuary
So, uh.... this is balanced? If you can spend the time to get these pieces together and stall the board long enough to repeatedly use them, all wihtout being force to delve one away to hold on to the game, you deserve it. Really feels like you're doing powerful things and playing well, but it's not back-breaking. A+ recommended.

B
Like their Wizardly brethren, Mono-B Zombies feels like it's missing one piece to be the deck it wants to be. Unlike Wizards, it's winning juuust fine without it. Only deck to use Metallic Mimic so far.
This is working better than expected. It's really obvious how much it's dependent on matchup - this is for playing against UG tempo to buy a few turns in the early game, and bG decks to keep them off double or triple G. Zombie Trailblazer is an absolute legend. Evil Presence in your opening hand buys so much time. Contaminated Ground can let the Zombie deck force a race against Tempo, and makes for nail-biting games. Sadly, Tainted Well is way too slow and too much of a mana-commitment to do anything in the matchups where you want this effect.
Getting to double-spell from turns 4 and on is the only way to get back into the game against the tempo decks so this has been abolutely vital to keeping those games fun. Glad it's actually doing something.
Works well enough, would be nice if it were a little better - having to choose between Cabal Pit/Ifnir Deadlands/Bojuka Bog and consistently good Defiles and Tendrils of Corruption kind of sucks, as the lands are just better includes in the deck on average. On the other hand, provides an interesting decision point. Defile and Tendrils are more relevant against Gx where you need early removal and a little bit of lifegain to shore up the mid game if the game is going to turn into a race. The lands are much much more important against Ux, where you have smaller, more specific threats that are must-answer but never roll into combat, and need to have uncounterable tools to deal with them. Playing against UG, you need everything you can get, but is it worth the risk to include them all? Not unhappy with how it's playing out, but it could probably be better?

G
Winner of "Most suprisingly powerful cards" award 2022. Snakes hurt, and have the highest abundance of matchup-defining cards. Sosuke's Summons does work. Voracious Typhon is a must-answer card as soon as you see it drafted - you need to pick up a Faerie Macabre or Relic, or present a real clock to prevent it ever Escaping - I thought it would be good, but it's gross. Mold Adder, while much more contingent on coming down T1, is a reason to play UG tempo all on its own if picked up in the first few packs and absolutely demands the opponent draft as many early answers as they can and mulligan heavily for them - we ended up having a fairly degenerate play pattern when UG tempo is up against Bx control, as both decks mulligan really really agressively around Mold Adder/multiple answers to Mold Adder. It's still fun though so the card is staying.
Patron of the Orochi fizzling a removal spell while upgrading a threat is nasty, especially when that threat was a Voracious Typhon. Seshiro, while on the weaker end, is a pretty nice way to mess with the maths on a race against Zombies when paired with a Sosuke's Summons, is enough of a threat against the board-light decks with any other snake, and giving +2/+2 to a trampling Hydra has ended the game. Not that Honored Hydra has ever needed any help.
Snake Pit is, as expected, unplayable despite my hopes. OTOH, none of the mono-green decks need it against control so it's an easy cut to help enable other decks that need the slots in green.
Again, this deck hurts. Such a stong clock. The GB lands make it really easy to splash for a few pieces of removal almost painlessly, which is what takes it over the top - that is my only reservation about the deck. Tied for best deck in the format.
Has a little trouble consistently getting to Threshold fast enough, but when it does hit it on turn 3 or so it can still clock you pretty fast. Hitting 5 cards on time, easy. Hitting seven? Bit of an ask. Needs multiple fetches just to fill the yard and a little U or B support - B is better as you get the self-mill on a body like Mire Triton orSkull Prophet and you have the backup plan of going for a grindier value based deck based on your opponent's draft. Is a much easier draft than the devotion deck. Would really benefit from an undercosted beater with the "downside" of milling you - a 2 mana 2/1 that milled 2 or 3 would be sweet. Especially if that creature had an ability that required blue mana so I could swap it in over some underperforming cards.

U/B
Works great! Would be nice to have a little more redundancy for consistency though, as you're fighting tempo decks and grindy decks for your key cards during the draft.
Oh boy is this deck fun. You build a little engine to make tokens and stall and stall and stall and then you turn that corner and BAM they're dead. Make a big Army token, give it swampwalk. Make a ton of 2/2s, give them menace. Slam a Big Fish and race. Aphetto Grifter and Zombie Trailblazer have been really fun.
Has gone completely undrafted. Has always felt like a bad idea even when all the pieces are in the same pool. Milling into Filth, Voracious Typhon, or Spider Spawning is the active gameplan of a fair number of decks, let alone the fact you're setting up their delve/GY matters stuff like Rise from the Tides. Against the decks where its not part of their gameplan (MonoG, UG), you dont have time to mill them, you're too busy trying to stay alive. Would be a lot better with more Faerie Macabre's. Free instant speed targeting grave hate is understandably rare but I want mooooore. Need to think about this, as I kinda want this to be an option even if only rarely.

B/G
So, so, so sweet. Works exactly like I'd imagined. Skull Prophet is so so so much better than I expected. 3 power is relevant.
Voracious Typhon is gross and carries this deck on her many backs. In her absence, it would still be really really good. Having access to the GB removal spells really helps in the draft if you're up against Mono-B or UB control.

U/G
Early contender for best deck, ended up being a very close third behind a tie for first thanks only to Choking Miasma being the perfect silver bullet. One turn where you can resolve that first threat is all you need, and every attempt to answer it seems to meet with more board presence from the tempo deck. And if that threat is a Mold Adder... Damn. I didn't expect this deck to go wide, but it does, and that's been the defining difference between this and Miracle-Gro (which also runs a suite of protection and counterspells, but goes tall).
Tied winner of best deck, off the back of Mold Adder. That thing demands an answer. And then another one, which also gets countered. And now it's too big for half of your opponents cheap removal to deal with, so they have to use the good stuff. Then you resolve the Quirion Dryad or Quandrix Pledgemage and they're out of ways to deal with that, and you still have that Simic Charm in hand anyway and the game is just out of control.

B/U/G
Yeah it's not as good when you don't have Gnaw to the Bone, and I don't have enough nostalgia to make up for that. However, I do now have an extra two slots in green, a copy of Gnaw to the Bone, and a copy of Krosan Reclamation. Lets hope that bridges the gap. Has been drafted, desperately needs the life-gain to get to its lategame.
In practice, it's BuG splashing for off-colour kickers or lands. Feels clunky but that's expected. Gets to play all the removal and whatever win-con it wants, but your life-total takes enough of a beating that even in games where you cleanly answer every threat and resolve some big haymaker, you can still lose to any evasive body connecting once with like, a Hashep Oasis or Centaur Garden in play - and there are a lot of those. Is fun, is playable, is always the underdog and nowhere near good enough to be worth forcing every draft - mission success.

Quick TL;DR:
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Another free counterspell so Ux can commit to the board early against Gx without going shields down, while being too big a commitment for UG to feel entirely comfortable about it. Like, I'll play it in UG, but losing three cards in hand to protect a threat will just give the control deck a better shot an answering that threat in a turn or two anyway so I'm okay with that.


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Going back to Mystical Teachings for a bit as I want to see how it plays with the free spells and Mystic Sanctuary, especially with the addition of Foil.


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Getting back a milled giant zombie or a key synergy piece is an obvious gap in the Mono-B deck. Extra redundancy for Ransack the Lab.


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Spider Spawning needs another Memory's Journey, and this is another piece of instant speed GY hate that can be cast from the yard.


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Lifegain for lifegain, but more reliable card for the role. Dedicated Spider Spawning combo piece, will be interested to see if it sees play in BG at all.


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Need another answer to T1 Mold Viper that doesn't totally invalidate Rhonas's Last Stand. Also feels better against Plaxmanta and Lazotep Plating than the current removal suite.


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Very lucky that this was just printed. Easy upgrade, better in BG and Mono-B than UB which is a shame, as UB needs it way more than any other deck, but I can cope. Having a piece of removal that exiles is will be nice going forwards too - Voracious Typhon has had it too easy for far too long.
 
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ravnic

ravnic

There is one more quibble I have with the list, of course speaking with zero experience with it or three-color cubes in general. You might know, that I like supporting mono color in cube, and one of the ways to do that, for me, has been with a very low number of gold cards. However, couting off-color activations, which you maybe should for most of these, I see 15 cards per guild! Also, some of the split cards could be counted as gold rather than hybrids as well. In addition to that, you run very, very few colorless cards.

I know it is easier with only three colors, but have true mono color decks really been relevant with so many cards it can't run?
 
K

Karshtakavaar

ravnic said:
Counting off-color activations, which you maybe should for most of these, I see 15 cards per guild! Also, some of the split cards could be counted as gold rather than hybrids as well. In addition to that, you run very, very few colorless cards.
Click to expand...

Yeah that was a very deliberate decision, having 21 gold/hybrid per guild against 21 'true' monocolour cards per colour - making picking up your manabase feel more important, as it doesn't get prioritized enough IMO. Two colour is usually the right call in a vacuum, but paying attention to the opponent's picks and tailoring your intended deck to suit what you're expecting them to play will change the calculus there.

I've found that having the UG lands be painful really play into the idea of adding a colour be a cost, I like how that's played out and am contemplating doing something similar with BG (That's why all the mana dorks hurt too, by the way). It makes it much easier for a 2/2 flier to race life totals when they're pinging themselves every turn to keep up on board, and you aren't. On the other hand, it makes it much easier to turn the game around and slam the door in the Tempo decks face when it does lose its board advantage, as it's had to pay for that tempo with a fair chunk of life - sometimes I've been at 11 just from my own lands.

That said, basically everything except 3-colour has been successful.

Mono-B can dismantle UG with proper mulligans, which has been its most common opponent, and can slam pretty decent haymakers thanks to the 5/5s. It gets the biggest help from the mana-denial - that's consistently been very good at keeping 2-colour decks off their spells (Also led to my favourite play, which was dropping a Evil Presence on an untapped Waterlogged Grove, encouraging the sac in response - just so a Zombie Trailblazer could squeak past counterspells and lock the opponent deck out of the game thanks to a Lazotep Reaver and zombie army that had been loafing around watching things fly overhead for a few turns.)

Mono-U has trouble against the faster decks (Mono-G, UG) but can squeak in wins before getting outvalued thanks to Rise from the Tides/a flier or three. Other than BUG it's the deck that needs the most help, as BG does have an easier time establishing a board and quite a lot of recursion to recover relevant threats that got counterspelled. Contemplating a Dissipate to help there. The Island-matters stuff sees as much play in UB as in mono-U so I wouldn't tout it as a selling point of the deck :p

Mono-G is the best deck at the moment and needs a bit of a nerf - dropping a 5 power creature on turn 2 or 3 is a hell of a clock when your opponent won't have the opportunity to do so for another two turns, and Voracious Typhon is just absolutely gross even without a ton of self-mill to set it up as it kills or trades with everything your opponent is likely to have except the black 5/5s, and against those it chumps and comes back as a 7/7 - even if only once that's often enough.
That said Twilight Mire does make it very easy to splash black and basic swamps in a deck which is otherwise just "devotion stompy". I do want that to change - either by replacing it and Overgrown Tomb with Tainted Wood + something that isn't a swamp, or waiting for BG to get a sac-draw land like the ones from New Cappenna.
 
K

Karshtakavaar

Cube Update!​

So, it's been a hot minute since I've updated y'all about the state of the Ana Grid. Let's have a quick catch-up.

In the last nine months we've gotten... some... reps in with the list. More than my main cube, less than I'd like.
Still been more than enough to discover some things. Let me share some of the lessons we learned as I go through the key cards that taught them.

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Steel Leaf could invalidate almost every game plan the control decks had. Beats Rise from the Tides, trades with cost-reduced 5/5s after already pressuring life totals. Way too strong after Serpopard and Yorvo. And all of that was just fine, because she died to removal. In mono-G.
In Gb, where you drafted the removal? It was a free-roll threat that not only never died to removal (because you had swiped all the removal that could deal with it from the slower deck) but also never rolled into combat against anything it couldn't ignore (because anything the slower deck deployed that was big enough to be a problem for it? Died to that removal you swiped from the slower deck).

Ended up in a bit of a "The Rock and a hard place " situation, where I couldn't get rid of the removal to solve the problem as that would kill the control decks, but also couldn't weaken the threats without killing the actual Mono-G deck. So Steel Leaf had to go.
On the bright side, going from a Kavu with a lil elf fren to a Baloth is definitely an upgrade.
Never found a copy of Old-Growth Troll at my FLGS so Leatherback has been filling in for a lil bit and has been doing fine.Will still swap to the Troll once I buy or trade for one.



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Seeing the Hart in the visual spoiler is what prompted me to revisit the list and update.
While Agent of Horizons is very easily the Simic card that needs replacing the most, nothing has been printed into that slot since DMU. OTOH, Spring//Mind has always been an also-ran and never pulled it's weight in the 'hybrid' slot. And lets be honest, Adventures are to split cards what (any other mechanic) is to Kicker.
I can imagine a Ux deck being ok way with Scan the Clouds as a thing to do with counter mana which incidentally fills the yard with Delve fodder, and Tempest Hart would really like to grow off those Delve'd spells.
The lesson learned here was... Uhh... Inoffensive slot filler that exists to pad out a list for symmetries' sake until something better comes along didn't hurt me, you should totally do it to0(?)



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It's become pretty clear that eating that key card (Voracious Typhon, Honored Hydra, Resilient Khenra, Mystic Sanctuary, I'm looking at you) is where I want my GY hate to be, rather than punishing your opponent for setting up to Delve or whatever. In my case, one-shot targeted exile is preferable to just hoping you can keep your opponents GY from getting too full, and the Lantern doesn't punish you for trying to win by nuking your GY. Would love this if let you mill yourself rather than draw but can't have everything. While Relic may come back in addition to the Lantern at some point, as it was doing it's job pretty well, I think this little tweak in functionality will have a bigger effect than it might appear.



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I've been wanting to lose the Golem since after the first set of testing, but couldn't find a replacement that hit my wishlist. Colourless, creature, big, guaranteed value, not overwhelming. Maybe Kruphix coming in would rescue Meteor Golem, but I very much doubt that. He's too small to do anything but be a 1-for-1 that chump blocks and he doesn't even exile so the real threats don't get affected.
The Brother's War had me excited during spoiler season, but then my shortlist was just Prototype creatures/things with unearth that I would need to balance colour-wise*, and I didn't want to make room for 3 cards when just 1 was the goal. Then I ran into an interesting new interaction with a certain Eldrazi in pauper, and it was like I was seeing someone I'd been carelessly oblivious to for years with a brand new set of eyes.

Excited to see if Ruin Processor pans out. Biggest body in the cube, but not by much. Interacts interestingly with Delve and Flashback and all that. Stabilizing but not backbreaking amount of lifegain. Reasonable 'synergy' with Death - BCS isn't backbreaking but should feel sweet! If you can have this guy hit the yard T1, see your opponent exile something before your T2, then cast Death to reanimate a 7/8 for a measly 2 life? Unlikely enough to be exciting, sweet but not unbeatable. Totally doable with Stitcher's Supplier and Faerie Macabre too, but what are you giving up by spending those resources so proactively?
Reanimating it in the midgame is going to make that trigger a lot more reliable, and getting out your big boy with mana up for other things has played well for the black 7-drops. 7 is also out of reach for any deck that isn't curving ramp spell into ramp spell, so it's not going to just randomly body someone outta nowhere or end up seeing play in the already-good decks.

*For the curious the shortlist was Arcane Proxy, some blue Emerge cards, Simian Simulacrum, Woodcaller Automaton, Ashnod's Harvester, and Terror Ballista



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Our first update to an update you didn't see. Double update baybeeee! Yeah, as per my last post, Gb needed the nerf. Dedicated BG midrange was totally fine. Mono-G, great deck but not oppressive. Mono-G feat. The Best of Black Kill Spells was far too strong and definitively the best deck. Couldn't weaken the removal without killing UB. Didn't want to nuke Mono-G. Already weakened the biggest threat and there are very few replacements that would fit the very specific requirements I have for symmetry. Answer was obvious: attack the mana.
Twilight Mire was just egregious. The switch to Tainted Wood helped a little bit without ever punishing slower BG decks. Sometimes though? It was just a Bayou. In the end it just made the Gb deck more subject to variance. We also had a pretty nasty 'gotcha' moment in a game 2 that also pushed this decision.

An Evil Presence on a Forest (to try to keep a player off {G}{G}{G}) gave the opponent the swamp they needed to play Tainted Wood followed by a Drag to the Underworld which would have been otherwise stuck in hand. It was a sweet play and a fantastic 'bad beats' story, not to mention a sick sideboarding decision for the Mono-G deck to bring in black cards and the weaker duals after seeing the Swampmakers were in the maindeck game 1, but both players agreed it was a little too 'free' considering that Verdant Catacombs, Woodland Cemetary and Overgrown Tomb had all been explicitly hate-drafted by the UB Zombie Wizards deck to stop the Gb deck from being an option.

I like how Hissing Quagmire plays and want additional targeted GY hate, so giving this a shot. Honestly tempted to cut another land and throw Svothgos into the mix as well, but I like how the other BG duals are working ATM.


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Dredge 2 is miserably small and black was the only colour without a manland. This is just another Restless Cottage tbh, and I've only added it because the Cottage is going in and maybe I can make manlands a thing. I'm already running Winter Eladrin, so my "but its a D&D card" excuse sounds weak even to me. Here starts my slide down the slippery slope that ends with either "The Doctor beats up Negan from The Walking Dead", or "Custom Cards that Remove Not-Magic from My Magic Cards"(tm).

Probably just steal the art from Spawning Pool and make it a 3/3 black Ooze or something....

That's it for earned swaps. Now for the bane of every cube's consistency: Changes for the sake of changes.

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Been thinking about this for 9 months, not going to know whether or not its a good idea unless I give it a shot.
I'm already using Devotion, trying to make mill a wincon, and have just below critical mass for snake tribal. That's two gods justified, symmetry demands a third. Hopefully the ramp spells and Kruphix will see a little more use if there's a top end that needs them. If not, I'll speed down that aforementioned slippery slope and colourshift Klothys, pretending Wizards is completing that second cycle of Gods from THB.

Kruphix, God of Prophecy - {1}{U}{G}
Legendary Enchantment Creature — God
Indestructible
As long as your devotion to green and blue is less than seven, Klothys isn’t a creature.
At the beginning of your upkeep, exile target card from a graveyard. If it was a land card, add {U} or {G}. If it was a creature card, gain 2 life. If it was a noncreature, nonland card, Scry 2. Until end of turn, you don’t lose this mana as steps and phases end.
4/5

...make the set symbol three crystals jutting out of the ground too, why not.


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With the curve Tempo runs out, Shambleshark is basically a 3/2 Flash for when you didn't need to counterspell. As great as it is and as much as I love the draft all-star, he trades too easily in this list and doesn't pressure as much as the fliers. Tatyova I have no read on, but I am adding a bunch of manlands for her to levitate in goodstuff.dec so maybe if I prod her enough she'll do something cool.

That's it for actual changes, finishing up with some changes I'm thinking about making, as well as a few brief musings.

Not sure about these swaps, recording them for posterity in case I do decide to change things up.

Memorial to Genius/Folly/Unity -> Littjara Mirrorlake, Nephalia Drownyard, Svothgos, the Restless Tomb

Not sure how I feel about this idea. The Memorials are fine and see play in all the non-aggressive decks, but they're unexciting tools to break symmetry is slow matches. These might be more exciting ways of doing that, but will definitely end up in fewer decks - probably exclusively the 2-colour decks that happen to pick them up. Matches my design goals, so totally happy with that, but more importantly, Mirrorlake (of all things) breaks symmetry. Sadly (from someone who loves them) Novijen and Alchemists Refuge are bad.

I like the activated ability on Winged Temple of Orazca, might do a backflip off the slippery slope and print a custom untapped colorless version with
"{2}{U}{G}, {T}: Target creature you control gains flying and gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is its power."
as a punchy game ender. If I end up trying Blossoming Tortoise I'll probably go with Dreadship Reef over the Drownyard, but the lil guy is missing like, 3 toughness to be worth casting at 4, and I'm pretty happy with everything in green as-is.


Consign//Oblivion -> Spellscorn Coven

Yeah Consign//Oblivion may as well n0t be a split card. I don't think it's ever been Aftermath'd - it's way more useful delving it away. That said, look at my other options. Far//Away would probably have the exact same play pattern as Consign (Bounce a thing to buy a turn when you didn't want to counter, or connect with whatever dude you happen to have down already) so I'm not that excited to make that swap. Cruel Somnophage is way too good a creature, however much I like the mill half. Maybe Rags//Riches? So yeah, a slow off-colour faerie that's also a tempo counterspell is looking pretty good right now, even if it's 1 mana too much for both halves.


  • I think I'd like to run more Adventures. Not a fan of the D&D cards but I'd play them for density. Elusive Otter would have been a windmill slam if it gained counters rather than just having prowess, though it'd have to be 2 mana or a 0/1 or something. Tlincalli Hunter would be a contender if it ate creatures from any graveyard.

  • I wish Blossoming Tortoise was pushed a little. 3/5, or brought back the lands untapped. No slots for it though really.


 
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