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.


 
K

Karshtakavaar

Cube Update!​

So it's been a hot minute since my last update. Something about having a baby does eat into time available to write pages of nonsense about Magic. Still, we've gotten quite a few reps in with the cube over the past... year!? (where does the time go!?). Not just drafting this with my partner anymore either, it's getting play with other people too - and we've even had some 4-player drafts; one rotisserie and one quilt draft. It's been much more liked than my main cube as well, which on the one hand is a little sad, but on the other has meant I only need two people to draft instead of eight so that's fantastic. The list has evolved a lot over this time, and I'll admit to forgetting some of the changes and reasoning behind them. That being the case, I'll be going over the differences between the current physical cube and what I can recall/reconstruct of the last iteration seen here once I get to the changelog.

But first, my favourite part of the update: Anecdotes!

So uh, Ruin Processor. We played two whole drafts before I had it pointed out to me that it's a cast trigger!? Immediately went to scryfall to check, as I run a few processors in an EDH deck and could have sworn they were ETBs. They are! Ruin Processor and one other are the -only- cast triggers out of the eleven. Why? Why do this to me WoTC? Is it because they're colourless? No, Ulamog's Despoiler is an ETB. Is it because 7+ mana eldrazi get cast triggers? Then why is the five mana Blight Herder the only other processor with a cast trigger, and Birthing Hulk an ETB despite costing 6G? Frankly, this kind of behavior is rude. I hereby declare BFZ the worst block of 2015. I can't imagine anyone being upset by that bombshell.

The processor has sat around for ages being only occasionally (very) relevant, and to be honest if it was an ETB it would still be in the cube because when it was good it was great. As it is, it's getting cut, because I'm desperate for an inoffensive reanimation target that can still win a game.
Originally I was intending to test out Grim Poppet, but another card has been printed since then that ended up edging it out - More on that later.



Fixing the mana really did help with the Gb deck. Attacking Devotion Stompy's access to removal has helped drop its winrate to only a teensy bit north of balanced. Losing Steel Leaf also helped I'm sure. Having two extra manlands has changed some matchups and led to BG having more ability to punish bad mulligans or slow starts from Faeries, Tempo, Miracle-Gro and Devotion Stompy. I'm also happy about the fact that the added ones kinda force you to tap out if you want to attack with them at a point in the game where they could be winning combats. Not super happy about the food token from Restless Cottage, its just a little bit more than the card needs in this cube, but it's still doing its job super well. Hive has been sweet for the same reason as Cottage - interacting with your opponents graveyard matters a lot in this cube.



Krosan Reclamation was the best addition made to any cube ever in the history of cubes. Spider Spawning.dec works now! Does it work well? No. It folds hard to Faeries, Miracle-Gro and Stompy. It does have fun against the really grindy decks though, as we can now do the Innistrad Draft infinispider. You don't get as much life or as many spiders without Screeching and Armoured Skaab but hey, we have their discount black friends. The combo has only won a single game, and that was a 4 player free-for-all, but it came very close a few other times. Nostalgia didn't hold me back this time around: Krosan Reclamation was replaced in favour of Turn the Earth, which has been pretty solid ever since. It's been a real roleplayer in [REDACTED] too.



The Theros gods were the worst additions made to any cube ever in the history of cubes. Totally warped the draft. Kruphix was at best boring, Pharika was just painful to play into, and Phenax was always the correct pick because it won the game on its own as soon as it resolved. They got cut after two drafts, and replaced with Kaseto, Orochi Archmage, Back for More, and Master of Death. They were all intially placeholders just because I had another draft coming up and needed the gods out, but amazingly all of them stuck. I had intended to run Diregraf Rebirth as the extra Zombify but couldn't find a copy... Until one specific interaction came up.



Back for More + Hag Hedge-Mage is funny as hell.
It's not what I'd call a consistent combo to draft around or anything, but it's a really silly lock. Fight whatever they have that can kill the Hag, Hag triggers recur the Back for More while forcing them to discard whatever they drew for turn, and you're ready to do it again next draw step - at least until there aren't any creatures that kill the Hag. This has won games.
Back for More is pretty decent mid-combat with Blight-Breath Catoblepas as well - Back for More lets you choose which order the creature ETB and delayed fight trigger resolve, so you can keep the lad alive through otherwise bad fights. If they've got a wider board, you can instead pick up a 3-for-1 as long as you're only fighting a 1/x. This has not won games, but it has made opportunities that could have led to a win if not for luck of the draw.
I have also been able to chump block a creature with a Mystic Snake, then Back for More'd the Snake in their postcombat main to counter a spell and fight the damaged creature to finish it off - that one felt pretty good too.

These aren't the best targets for a (six mana) zombify, but they are enough for me to justify continuing to run (again, a six mana) zombify - despite finally finding a copy of Diregraf Rebirth in the chaff pile at my FLGS. It being tutorable with Teachings has come up in [REDACTED] as well, which further motivates me to keep it in.



Tempest Hart is a 2 mana instant that fills the yard, and maybe comes out to block if you brick. Honestly? Kinda enough. It's done more since its inclusion than Spring//Mind ever did. Have yet to see it run in a simic big stuff deck but haven't really seen many of those, so oh well. Also thought it would see play next to the delve stuff or blacks' cost reduced beaters, but that's also yet to happen. Here's hoping.



Soul-Guide Lantern performed exactly as expected. Really key card - when you want it, you need it. Super happy with that being brought in.

Since I last posted here, we've had a few sets with relevant mechanics, so lets do my old faithful of nesting spoilers as I go through them all. I'll be skipping all UB products because I have strong opinions, and all the commander releases as well since nothng has been noteworthy there.

I know I talked about this set last time, but a card from MKM that didn't end up lasting did lead me to include a few new things from the set. Snaremaster Sprite and its stun counter got me onto Succumb to the Cold and Freeze in Place, and all three have played really well. Its also a ton of fun moving those stun counters with a Fate Transfer. Not like worth warping a draft around, but it's happened and its back breaking.

Picklock Prankster was another addition I wasn't expecting to make, but it's been sweet. Not in Faeries, it doesn't go in faerie decks - don't be a fool. It goes in Mystical Teachings. It beats up faeries. Sure you can't find it with Teachings as it'll only ever be an instant while on the stack, but it can find Teachings and 'draw' you a creature. Then it can block fliers with its three toughness while also threatening crackbacks thanks to that vigilance. With how tight the maths on trading life for coloured mana can be for the UG decks, even 1 extra damage a turn is pretty relevant and has led to 2/2 fliers being held back to wall it in closer games - which just gives more time for the slower deck to draw a real out. Way way happier with this addition than I thought I'd be.

LCI had a ton of GY interaction in the set, but also a relevant creature type update. In the end, the latter mattered a lot more for this cube.
The move from Naga -> Snake (as it should have been to start with IMHO thanks to the orochi of Kamigawa) originally only affected Champion of Wits, but it did get me looking at other former Naga to see what else appealed. Profaner of the Dead and Spellweaver Eternal (and to a lesser extent, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant) were the only ones that grabbed me, and of those only Profaner of the Dead made it into the list.
Profaner of the Dead is strong. Exploiting itself has been a significant play in multiple games due to the prevalence of x/2s. It's been a really nice board wipe for slow decks while being a playable top end finisher in aggressive ones, all while having meaningful and accessible outs that have and do come up. The cost reduced 5/5's in black play well with and against it, with access to instant speed removal you can pop the Profaner in response to the sac to stop the bounce, it's made the control vs control mirror fairer by reducing the threat of Rise from the Tides.

I also had a test of Join the Dead (Didn't last long, wasn't interesting enough to overcome the decrease in pretty from cutting Eliminate according to my partner - and to be honest I agree), and I am still somehow yet to find that Bitter Triumph I want so I can replace Infernal Grasp.

In the end, Descend really didn't do anything for us, Craft was much the same, and this isn't the right cube for Discover.

The lands though? The lands in this set are sweet. Pit of Offerings was a windmill slam, and led to a big ol' slot shuffle to fit it in. I liked the look of Sunken Citadel as another 'gold' land that wasn't just free, and it's seen a lot of play as a way to animate manlands.
The Memorials were thoroughly mid and I'd been wanting to replace them for a while, so out they came. That's three cuts for two cards, so what did I add to fill that last slot? Why, [REDACTED] of course!

Now that I think of it, Restless Reef did come in over Temple of Deceit. It didn't even make it one draft before the next set came out and, well...

Oh baby, Surveil lands! The inclusion of Undercity Sewers is about as predictable as a swap can get. I care about the graveyard, I care about basic land types, slam dunk. Neither of the others made it in - I'm in love with my Simic mana base and those decks do not need to take a tempo hit so they can aggressively fill the yard, and BG still kinda needs its one fetchable to come in untapped so it can participate in the game.
Being able to fetch->surveil->mill 3+ on turn 1 has been absolutely massive for UBx decks. That extra resource in the yard makes for faster delves, faster flashback, faster reanimation. So super happy to have this card.

Collect Evidence seemed like a slam dunk mechanic. I was so excited for how this would play with Delve. Set up a big yard, Delve away stuff, Collect the Delve card, get maximum value for minimal tempo loss, invent time travel and immortality, retire a trillionaire at 19. It was going to be great.
And then... It wasn't. Just never quite lined up right. Made things so much more dependant on the order you drew your cards, and the extra variance was just incredibly unfun. The only two that sort of worked were Crimestopper Sprite (Replaced by the much more reliable Snaremaster) and the eminently replaceable Extract a Confession.

The only other card from MKM that stuck was Reasonable Doubt, which came in over Anticognition. Suspecting a creature has played really well, whether one of your own or one of your opponents. Actually really happy with this one, perfect level of "make player feel smart" when they do the thing.

All in all, despite my disappointments with this set the stuff that stuck has been sweet as.

Wow those new Hybrid cards are strong. Sludge Titan, Dimir Strandcatcher and Scuttling Sentinel all had appeal during spoiler season, but they're juuuust pushed enough that I'm not interested enough to hunt for them. If I chance upon a Sludge Titan it might come in over Pitiless Gorgon, but I doubt it. The gorgon, Whisper Agent and Quandrix Pledge-Mage have been really serviceable role-players and curve-fillers and I don't want to swap them out for things that are way more powerful and way less elegant.

The only card I even looked at was Badlands Revival, and I'm deep enough on "Golgari Zombify With Upside" as-is.

Those new MDFCs are looking miiighty spicy. Another Mystical Teachings? A replacement for Ruin Processor? A combat trick to improve Status//Statue's stock? Drowner of Truth, Waterlogged Teachings and Revitalizing Repast went straight in, and in the few drafts we've done with them they've been sweet.
Waterlogged Teachings has been the best of the three thanks to [REDACTED], but all three have been maindecked with both sides seeing use. I was worried about more lands making splashing too easy but these are pretty low power lands.

I'm also looking at the monocoloured MDFCs (And even reconsidering the ZNR ones) but am not sold.
Boggart Trawler is another piece of very easily maindeckable grave hate which I find pretty appealing - though I don't currently have a cut for it. Agadeem's Awakening could be spicy with Titans' Nest despite the obvious anti-synergy. Even Fell the Profane is pretty obviously playable even if it's an unexciting swap for any other removal spell.
Both Bridgeworks Battle and Disciple of Freyalise seem fine, and I'm even looking to swap out some underplayed green cards. Sadly however, all of the blue MDFCs look like they'll play worse than the current blue suite - Hydroelectric Specimen's 4 toughness walls a little too well and is a bit much to curve into Profaner of the Dead. I don't need to give Ux tempo more ways to fuck over removal spells and combat tricks, and its creature type just isn't relevant in a colour where I've managed to give every creature a relevant type or two. Sink into Stupor is more appealing, but I really like all my blue interaction at the moment. Sea Gate Restoration is 7 mana, doesn't affect the board, and isn't even an instant for the only deck that might consider it.
In always-enters-tapped-land land, I like the look of Malakir Rebirth and Bala Ged Recovery, but not that much. Again, no blue ones seem appealing. I'll revisit this line of thought if more MDFC lands see print.

Due to how well both Pit of Offering and Sunken Citadel have played, I'm considering Foreboding Landscape as another sorta-not-really tri-land. 3 colour decks are in a much, much better spot with the additions of Krosan Reclamation, Gnaw to the Bone, Profaner of the Dead, and especially [REDACTED]. One more low priority land might really help out without letting faster decks get greedy with their colours. That said, I just added three of those with the hybrid MDFCs and I still want to have choosing your colours be important to the draft. It's sitting on the outside looking in for now - but it's reasonably high on the pile. If Sunken Citadel underperforms going forward I might make the swap, but the ability to cheaply animate manlands (Especially Hive and Cottage for the grave hate) has won games, and it's also been used to cycle Fetid Pools that one time - that counts as relevant, right?


In tribal news, I'm thinking real hard about Fanatic of Rhonas (Too strong) and Hope-Ender Coatl (Too redundant) as extra Snake density but I don't think either is warranted.
Accursed Marauder is a bit pushed for this cube, and I suspect the same of Consuming Corruption, but Grim Servant could be a fun include - the only thing preventing me is a vague desire to avoid the generic tutor. To be fair it'd probably just be grabbing removal or like, Zombie Trailblazer rather than being a toolbox card like the Teachings. In a future update I may cut a removal spell for the Servant and make the swap to the cheaper Corruption if black needs a shuffle. I probably would have found room if it was a Wizard rather than a Warlock.
Speaking of Wizards, they didn't print any in MH3 that are even remotely in the right power band or level of interesting for this cube. Neither of the Faeries in the set are making it in either. Emrakul's Messenger might have been cute support for Simic ramp if there were any ways to repeatedly trigger it outside of Gush+Mystic Sanctuary - which in a ramp deck is, uh... Counterproductive. Sneaky Snacker is just unplayable. Draw 3 is not an archetype (Looking at you too, Mindless Conscription).

Squeaking *wink* in at the last minute we have Bloomburrow.
Like Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, I was expecting this set to have an outsized impact on the cube. For a tribal set with no overlap with the tribes in this cube, there's still a lot I was looking forward to as spoilers progressed: A lot of cards my partner will love, a beautiful showcase frame, the return of Flashback, Surveil, Threshold, and especially new Hybrid cards. Thats a lot of design space overlap, so surely there'd be something, right?

In particular, my fingers were crossed we'd see a decent uncommon snake or two as calamity beasts. Instead we got Keyword Elk. The only snake is the mythic Rottenmouth Viper, which is significantly too strong for the cube despite vaguely fitting one of Blacks themes.

Sadly this is generally true of the set as a whole. The only things I'm considering are Peerless Recycling (Possibly replacing Primal Bellow) and maybe Cache Grab (and that's an awful lot of flavour text about squirrels there, so it depends on how attached I am to the simplicity and snakeicity of Winding Way).


To wrap things up, here's the usual TL;DR. This time, it's longer than the rest of the post; there have been a lot of changes.
This time around I'll split it into two; the changes you've missed (Along with reports on the performance of the 'new' card), and the changes I'm just now making (With the usual baseless justifications and hopes).

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The Snaremaster been a fine extra Frost Trickster, but 1 power is a serious downgrade. 1 mana was the important part which the Crimestopper lacked - Seer letting you play a t2 Quickling was key, and Snaremaster lets you do that then stun on t3. While that's the best thing it can do, fortunately that's good enough for now as consistently messing with the pace of mono-g is key to winning that matchup.



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Threnody Singer just wasn't getting drafted, so goodbye my hopes of including any U devotion. The only thing I don't love about the Prankster is how misleading it is to people who haven't drafted this cube before. This is not a card to play in your tempo Faerie list. It's fine as a 23rd playable, but not something to chase during the draft - you need to be pressuring lifetotals before you get pushed out of the game, not squeezing every last bit of value out of your cards. This is a defensive card that helps you survive the early aggression of your opponents' faeries, drawing you into actual outs while also buying the time to cast them. Amazing card.



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I don't remember what I cut for it, but man Profaner of the Dead is strong. Exploiting itself has been a significant play in multiple games due to the prevalence of x/2s. It's been a really nice board wipe for slow decks while being a playable top end finisher in aggressive ones, all while having meaningful and accessible outs that have and do come up. The cost reduced 5/5's in black play well with and against it, with access to instant speed removal you can pop the Profaner in response to the sacrifice to prevent the bounce from triggering and get a 2-for-1, it's made the control vs control mirror fairer by reducing the threat of Rise from the Tides. Love love love it.


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Counterspell that require board presence often dead. Tempo counterspell good in tempo. Poor U devotion, you never did anything.


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Collect Evidence being a poor fit killed my last bit of hope for Will of the Naga to become relevant. Succumb does it better, and Stun counters are cool.


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Anticognition didn't really scry much, and I wanted to test a list with fewer counterspells. Freeze is Place has been pretty solid, and let tempo-y decks risk going shields down to resolve a threat in hopes of answering any creature that does resolve.
Haha made you look. Black is perfect.
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Strict upgrade because the decks that want this effect need a hand.



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It's not like either are getting played, lets at least have a more interesting text box sitting in your sideboard.
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The other adventures have all played really well - far better than expected. I had hoped the same would be true here, as none of the Dimir split cards were pulling their weight when tested. It's been fine, usually sits in the SB, sometimes does an okay Remand impression. Once got bounced by a Quickling for value (T3 Take It Back, T4 Spellscorn Coven, T5 Quickling+Take It Back) which was neat, but only having a Picklock Prankster attacking during all of that didn't seem particularly powerful, and I don't remember how that game ended anyway because I wasn't one of the players.


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Dimir Charm was pretty much always "the worst removal spell in your deck". Dihada's Ploy seemed interesting enough to be worth a shot, and it's been fine. Honestly, Tainted Indulgence was better in the brief window I was running it but it was a little boring and had someone get a little sad about having used their GY up before casting the Indulgence. I don't like that antisynergy causing feel-bads regardless of how irrelevant it is to actually winning games.


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Oh god were the gods a mistake, and none moreso than Phenax. I must have totally repressed all memories of THS/BNG/JOU draft, because intellectually I know I lost drafts to Phenax but man did I foget the momentum killing "Oh this game is over" vibe he gives off. Fastest cut I ever made. Master of Death was just a filler swap as I paged through my binders before a draft, but it's managed to stick. Zombie Wizards goes hard, something about playing "double tribal" tickles people I guess?


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Deathsprout was just hard to cast removal, or at least it felt that way. If the ramp was doing anything it was doing it pretty invisibly. I had somehow missed Skyfisher Spider on my first pass of BRO and it's been more than solid. Honestly a little on the strong side, but that's fine because it's shoring up the slow value decks that want the help. I have my eye on it in case it starts making its way into the more aggressive decks.


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Pharika was just miserable to play into, as it was unlikely your opponent had access to what was then the only answers to an Indestructible enchantment - Wear Away. Really easy to get the devotion to animate Pharika, handily the easiest of the gods, and really really pushed Devotion Stompy way more than needed while also giving that deck access to emergency grave hate against the decks it was already bullying. Making snakes out of your own graveyard came up, but the fact that they were snakes never did - they were just extra attackers that kept you in a game where you'd been run out of gas. Miserable.
I couldn't find a copy of Diregraf Rebirth in my chaff so settled for a Back for More as a placeholder until I spotted one in the wild - and then Back for More performed miracles. Hag Hedge-Mage, Pitiless Gorgon, Ambush Viper, Resilient Khenra, Nylea's Huntmaster, Blight-Breath Catoblepas, all made much more maindeckable by this card. Okay, the Khenra and Huntmaster didn't need the help, they were already seeing plenty of play.

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Tatyova ended up being a trap, with nowhere near enough the density of cards needed to make her work. She wanted to be in a BUG deck despite being triple-pipped, and when she was doing her thing you were losing races to much larger scarier threats that had been pressuring your lifetotal well before she came online. As another feels-bad, she turned every land drop from 7 onwards into an opportunity for your opponent to destroy a land with their removal suite. While the card got attention and was exciting to draft it just didn't work. Failed experiment, surpise snake has been a safe reliable roleplayer, happy with the swap.


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Kruphix was a card. It wasn't super offensive in hindsight, and with more and better answers to it could possibly come back to encourage ramp decks, but at the time the other two gods had been so immediately overwhelmingly oppressive that I cut it on reflex. Given the increase in removal that can hit Kruphix and a new deck that's started getting drafted, Kruphix may have meandered back into the cube at a later date if it weren't for Kaseto.
Kaseto has been interesting, even if I'm not in love with the card in this context. He does all the right stuff at more or less the right power level and has seen play in multiple decks from 23rd playable in tempo to a core piece of Timmy's Big Snake Go Smash Face Deck. That's not a glowing endorsement, not being egregious is usually not enough for me to keep a card I don't have to, but Kaseto (Along with my boy Seshiro) has ignited a love of Kamigawa and Orochi in one of my very occasional drafters which has been a motivator for them to want to draft this list again and again. Still, feels a little "cute".
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This is quite probably the most self-explanatory set of changes it's possible to have. I care about graveyards, swamps, and islands. UB isn't the best deck at the moment, so lets bring up the power a little. EZ swap.


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Low opportunity cost grave hate that doesn't nuke the yard and actually fixes mana, what a huge improvement in the degree of interaction without a massive spike in power. Has been an absolute all-star.


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Memorial to Folly was the best of the Memorials, but it wasn't amazing. It's a sad victim of the other two being awful. Sunken Citadel has been fun though - fixes mana but is absolutely not a freeroll, affects sequencing, and has a cool upside if you're running manlands, deserts, or even Fetid Pools. Has played way better than I expected - I honestly put it in as a bit of filler until something better came along. Sure I'd like it if it were a Desert over a Cave, but I'm still happy.



...Wait. Where's Memorial to Unity gone?
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Much like Sunken Citadel, this was a bit of fun filler while I looked for something else (In this case, a copy of Sidisi). Originally I wasn't terribly excited, but I had hoped it would support Spider Spawning and maybe some kind of BUG control deck - skipping a turn so you could give all your stuff Delve didn't seem like it was a freeroll, nor like it was absurd. Then we played with it and it was nuts. Not in terms of power, it's perfectly fine on that axis (If a little weak). Nuts in how it has recontextualized a whole bunch of cards in the cube and given them a home in a brand new archetype. The card creates exciting comebacks and dramatically powers up the weakest and jankiest decks while not being remotely playable outside of them. If you haven't worked it out by now, this is the punchline to all that [REDACTED] nonsense I made you sit through.


The amazingly positive knock on effects of one card being added have really surprised me.
This has single-handedly dragged Memory Sluice into playability, as the enchantment has made turbo self-mill just on the edge of good enough in 1v1. There's a very real weakness in blind milling both Titans' Nest and Urborg Repossession, as locking yourself into paying retail for your very expensive turns just costs you the game. Sadly, the deck often has no option but to go for it, as "make big graveyard fast" is its only way to win some matchups. This incidentally resulted in getting Hag Hedge-Mage into more decks as an additional safety net, which has led to the Back for More lines I talked about at the top of the update, which has gotten Mystical Teachings more main-deck presence.
The ramp creatures all get picked up more in order to enable a t3 Nest, which is huge for the decks ability to win games before totally losing the board, and now people have seen it at it's best Embodiment of Spring is putting in work as a blocker for all sorts of Ux decks that are trying to go late.
2 mana Ribbons of Night puts in work.
The ability to pay for Kicker costs while keeping the actual spell at a reasonable price has led to those cards all getting more love too - the spells were often okay unkicked, but now there's a deck that reliably gets the bonus effects. Rona's Vortex was the biggest winner there. This is also the real reason Elvish Hydromancer came in over the Agent.
It's even had me looking at Far//Away again just in case the deck would want to Fuse its split card - eating 3 from the yard is not difficult for this deck to achieve and that tempo swing would be a massive help.
Don't know how I feel about not getting to slam whatever I've had in the "big colourless card" slot, might lead to another experiment with Sphinx of the Guildpact - but probably not.


Its been most impactful in the four player free-for-all games we've started having on occasion, but that's not too surprising; slow haymaker decks always do better in multiplayer. One of those games came down to a nailbiting topdeck war with UB Zombies that saw the Nest player forced to exile a bunch of key cards to stay in the game, still getting to enough spiders to profitably block a massive Rise from the Tides backed by Gleaming Overseer support while still representing lethal on the crack back - only to tragically deck out because they'd been forced to exile Krosan Reclamation earlier in the game. This is a card that creates stories.
It's simultaneously much much much stronger than I anticipated and also not at all "good". Plays a vital role in both Mystical Teachings and Spider Spawning decks, so much so that it's created a Teachings Nest archetype that will probably eventually get added to the OP:

B/U/G

Teachings/Nest
Holy shit this is a sweet deck. Mill yourself a bunch, take a tempo hit, then play cool shit for the rest of the game until your opponent is forced to concede out of the aura of awesomeness you're exuding after finding whatever janky line that's never been seen before that either sent them flying into last week or did stone cold nothing but sure involved lots of cardboard changing zones. Comes with free shades.
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As sad as I am to see a pet card in a top-tier tribe go (Baloth deserves its own creature type fight me, fuck Kavu all my bros prefer Baloths), it's just not doing enough. Really hard to get value off of this boy, as at 6 mana the 4 power just isn't able to help you stabilize enough to actually cast whatever you recur, and more often than not it's just bringing back like a Mire Triton and some other chump right as the game ends.
The grindy value engine decks are ignoring it as BG will happily reanimate any number of other bigger threats over it, and BUG passes it up in favour of the Hag, eternal spiders, and arbitrary lifetotals. Recurring anything while staving off decking out while going wide is just better than making a medium body that 'draws' two over and over again - you kinda want your dudes to stay in the yard in that deck, and neither Teachings or Titans' Nest synergise with him at all.


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As is my wont, I am making a change for changes' sake. I've been winnowing down Devotion stuff, and black has the most Devotion left. Removal has incrementally been getting stronger, and this brings it back a little. Those are both pathetically weak excuses to cut a card that is honestly exactly where it should be and has played super well. On the other hand, Soul Enervation might be fun! It's still removal, still searchable with Teachings, another thing for Titan's Nest to benefit from, and a new win condition maybe? It also adds to devotion? Yeah I don't see this sticking. Still want to give it a shot.


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Fuck it, lets give it a shot. Slitherhead is unplayable. DRS definitely isn't.


Final thoughts: Wow drafters have gotten used to being spoonfed. I know this is grouchy 'back in my day' nonsense, but interacting with drafters at my FLGS now they've gotten used to those little draft primer inserts in boxes has been wild. My old FLGS has died and the new one I go to is in a very different part of the city and has a totally different playerbase, which is obviously also a massive factor.
Their local vintage cube dude has had to start including "How to draft my cube" things for people in order to get enough players involved, and it was apparently really novel for him to have a player just sit down and start drafting without asking a ton of questions about "What does this colour combo do", "What should I be looking for in the packs?", etc, etc., before and during the draft. Went to FNM for a while as well and it really reinforced that feeling for me too. Most people just... draft on rails. Do the boring thing, draft the same deck week after week. No desire to experiment. It was fun for a while blindsiding people with weird shit, but it's gotten really stale rocking up, lazily drafting some dumb meme based on a random card I saw in pack one, then handily going 3-0 against people who should really be winning these matches.
The quote-unquote 'good' players who only rock up for the start of a set or for MH3 aren't much different, just significantly better players. They have correctly identified the good deck in the format, draft it well, play it well. Arena seems to have been a factor there too; lot of people talking about their Arena draft experiences and how that's affected their picks and what they like to play. That side of things I'm cool with, more experience and familiarity with a format makes you better at playing that format which I am all for. The problem is the sets since WoE haven't been rich enough draft experiences for the other players in this micro metagame to punish the drafters lazily drafting the one good deck in the format. Pretty sad about it to be honest; I miss the people and culture at my old FLGS. It's not all bad, they're all lovely people at the new place (Both the staff and the players) and a ton of fun to joke around with, but the Magic isn't great.

Why bring it up? Well, because it's gotten me thinking about making a draft primer for this cube. When people have asked, I've linked them to this thread and it's done the job. On the other hand, I think there's something to love about blind drafting. I love drafting cubes blind, making predictions about what's likely to be in the list based on what you see being passed around a table, hoping desperately they did decide to include that card only to be rewarded when it suddenly appears pack 2 or being forced to resuce your deck pack 3. I think it helps simulate the feeling of a retail draft much better when you don't know what's coming up beyond a vague idea of 'this is the pool of things that could be there'. The vintage cube dude sent me a cool template for making draft primers, and I don't know whether I want to do it or not. It's not some great existential issue; I'll still be linking this thread to anyone whose never seen the cube before with the caveat that "Cards have changed, the feel is the same". Just slowly making up my mind, and very interested in other peoples thoughts on draft primers.

Wow that was a mammoth post. Thanks for making it to the end.
 
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