anotak's cube (budget-ish)

anotak · Aug 12, 2013

Hi, I'm anotak and here's the 360 budgety cube I'm working on:
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/2573
edit: http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/arnold-in-raw-deal/

This is my first cube and it is mostly made out of cards me and a friend had laying around. I'm trying to cut it down to 360 cards (As I'm writing this it is 372). I haven't had the chance to make it as I'm still designing here but I figured I'd get some advice from the experts.
I've read a decent bit of articles on cube-building and I wanted to have some fun with some of these cards I don't get to use much. Should have the first draft within the next week or so as soon as I get a chance to buy the sleeves. I mostly have access to budgety cards from about Alara block and newer. I actually have a playset of all the uncommons and commons from ALA -> WWK and M10 except the uncommons from conflux... using my only Path to Exile in an EDH deck atm but I could take that apart maybe. I can take suggestions outside of these but those will be much easier for me to get considering my local playgroup.

out of date stuff:

things about the cube itself:
- Storm Crow has etb storm: "When Storm Crow enters the battlefield, for each other spell cast this turn, put a 1/2 blue Bird creature token with flying named Storm Crow onto the battlefield" errata. a friend's peasant cube has this so most of the people locally are used to this. blinking it is nice.
- The only goal really is just to have a cube that's around that people can play once school starts up and people are back in town to play in large groups, last semester was EDH every week and while I love the format a lot of people seemed to be getting pretty tired of it
- I'm not really sure how to make aggro fun or good, because I'm not really an aggro player myself. Perhaps getting a better manabase would help a decent bit
- Is Evincar's Justice too good for this environment?
- My friend that's been giving me advice on the cube says black might be too strong here, he might be right, I guess I just need to playtest. I tend to play black more than anything else so that's probably biased me.
- Same friend feels that green only has 'elves into big stuff', I'm not sure what else green is really supposed to have though?
- I've read a lot of stuff saying tri-color cards aren't great in cube but for now I want to make that mistake on my own with a few drafts before I decide to take them out. I will be keeping a close eye on them though.
- Are there any absolutely awful 'why is this in here' cards?
- I'm not sure about the lands, for example I'm missing Vivid Crag (although I can probably find this pretty easily), and I only have Godless Shrine and Rootbound Crag from those cycles. Same with the two tainteds, but the tainted lands are an unbalanced cycle in the first place so I'm not sure it is worth running them at all?
- Tidehollow Sculler or Sin Collector?
- Auger Spree or Terminate or Bituminous Blast? Terminate seems like it is better than Spree, but Spree has the potential to be a combat trick and that's sort of neat. Bit Blast is a little bit different of a card, but cascade might be one of my favorite mechanics so it might be tilting me towards a card people will like less. I'm not sure if someone will want to grab a multicolor card to just have another generic removal spell or two unless it does quite a something a little extra though (like Putrefy/Mortify hitting another permanent type)
- Another friend said I have too much fixing, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. Related: are the borderposts too terrible?
- When is it worth it to run a mainly sideboard card like Relic of Progenitus?
- How do I know how much is too much removal?
- Any obvious themes I could fit in here? I've got elves, is it worth throwing in Nettle Sentinel + Heritage Druid? I've got hints of the izzet spells matter thing (but i need Kiln Fiend, Young Pyromancer. I own a Nivix Cyclops I'd have to add that in with them probably). I suppose I could also add rituals for storm, I put Grapshot because in my experience with MMA draft it's decent as fair removal/burn card as opposed to going nuts like usual. I'd have to find an Empty the Warrens but that wouldn't be too hard. I guess multicolor is a minor theme in the sense of most of my cards being from ALA and RTR, maybe I could finish out the Bant Sureblade cycle (enabled by borderposts too)? I could find some more blink cards too. Maybe Ethereal Armor or Mesa Enchantress would be worth running? Tokens?
- Mask of Riddles is probably my favorite card that I've never had the chance to actually cast so I hope it's at least decent.
- I'm not sure that I should run both Putrefy and Abrupt Decay. The latter card seems a lot weaker here than in constructed, perhaps I can throw in something like Necrogenesis in its spot or just cut it completely.

Thanks in advance for having a look and any help y'all can offer!

HannesVersmissen · Aug 12, 2013

I like the feel of the draf, but some cards (for example deranged hermit) just feel like you don't actually want them in your booster because they fall out of the overal powerlevel that much. civic wayfinder veels very outclassed for example

http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/16907

anotak · Aug 12, 2013

Thanks for the input and the list. do you mean Deranged Assistant? I don't have a Deranged Hermit in there, although I very likely would if I owned one. Either way I guess Deranged Assistant is a good choice to cut probably hm

Edit: I went ahead and cut the assistant and civic wayfinder. I was thinking of wayfinder as 'i know this is a good card' not as in 'how good is this compared to the other cards'

Eric Chan · Aug 12, 2013

That errata for Storm Crow is genius. Absolute genius. I think it's borderline too powerful, but I still love the design.

Hey now! Civic Wayfinder is a perfectly fine card. I run Borderland Ranger myself, and he puts in pretty decent work.

I haven't dug too deep into your list, but at a really high level, it feels like you want more creatures in your list. In limited environments like these, having a lot of creatures helps make your games more interactive, and gives both players lots of room to make interesting decisions. I would aim for a makeup of roughly somewhere between 48 - 50% creatures. If you're looking at 360 cards, that would make 173 creatures your goal to shoot for. That's certainly one way to improve aggro.

You'll be able to tell there's too much removal if one player can simply nab all the removal spells, and win with a boring, attrition-based control deck.

But seriously, if you find the slower decks are always winning, and can consistently keep the board clear, that's a signal to tone down the removal.

Aside from that, welcome to the forums!

anotak · Aug 12, 2013

Like I said, I can't take credit for the Storm Crow errata, I've just enjoyed Momentary Blinking it a lot in my friend's common/uncommon cube.

Well, Wayfinder is quite a great card.... but I have to cut something don't I? Not sure, maybe I'll put it back, I have to find something that it is more fun than.

I'll look at upping the creatures some more.

Jason Waddell · Aug 12, 2013

Eric Chan said:
Hey now! Civic Wayfinder is a perfectly fine card. I run Borderland Ranger myself, and he puts in pretty decent work.

Didn't we decide live on air Saturday to cut that card?

anotak · Aug 12, 2013

Jason Waddell said:
Didn't we decide live on air Saturday to cut that card?

To be fair, it is an elf, which is perhaps more relevant here than in most situations because of the Imperious Perfect and Elvish Archdruid... I'm also still strongly considering throwing in the Heritage Druid but I don't know if that's worth it, perfect and archdruid have some utility outside of an elf deck

HannesVersmissen · Aug 12, 2013

anotak said:
To be fair, it is an elf, which is perhaps more relevant here than in most situations because of the Imperious Perfect and Elvish Archdruid... I'm also still strongly considering throwing in the Heritage Druid but I don't know if that's worth it, perfect and archdruid have some utility outside of an elf deck

I wouldn't dislike a perfect without any elf support. it's a strong card even in a vacuüm. Heritage druid only favors those who picked up elf-tribal (and mana-dorks are already quite high picks as is, getting enough together for a decent elf deck might not even happen). the archdruid is a diffrent story. one other elf and you're already in "better than most 3-mana dorks" teritory.

anotak · Aug 13, 2013

Got it down to 360, the lands still need work. I threw in the Mesa Enchantress, we'll see how that goes.

Threw it on here too because why not http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/arnold-in-raw-deal/

anotak · Aug 22, 2013

I'm really tempted to throw in my Stasis but I feel like everyone will hate me.

Haven't had a chance to do a real draft with it still because people have still been out of town, if I can manage to get a ride to the store and get some sleeves today though it should be the first time to test it out. A friend was looking at the list and he said he doesn't like the obelisks so I doubled up on alara shardlands instead, might be an bad idea, dunno. Tried to fix some other little things too, threw in Past in Flames, as it's one of my favorite cards and we'll see if it's fun here.

I got very very lucky and managed to preorder a FTV20 for MSRP so after I sell the JTMS or whatever else I should have some cool additions

anotak · Aug 24, 2013

I went to FNM to pick up sleeves and my FTV20, and I didn't have a deck for any format so I was just sleeving it up and once I got done I managed to get an sort of bad 3-player draft with the local judge and tournament organizer where we just played 3 ffa multiplayer games with it between them dealing with the tournament, not ideal and not what the cube was designed for, but really I was just hungry to try it. In retrospect I think we should've used grid draft but I forgot about it. I didn't realize I had the Blistercoil Weird + Paradise Mantle combo going on until they were in the same pack. This is roughly what decklists looked like, even though I accidentally might've mixed them up, and the basics aren't there:

My dimir (with 2 red sources for turn//burn fuse) tempo/control, I won 2 of the games with this, somehow I first picked a bloodbraid elf and ended up with this (edit apparently I played 41 cards because I had 17 land, I miscounted I guess):

dimir

this deck didn't win any but I think a big part of that was using duress effects in a goofy 3 player FFA game. Kaalia colors

This deck won 1 of the games, Jund Splash blue for keiga, I'm pretty sure I'm missing a chunk of it:

Now I need to decide where to fit in some of these FTV20 cards, I'm going to sell the $20+ hymn/swords/dark rit and probably just get regular nonfoil ones on the cheap. I'm not sure if I should put in Chameleon Colossus, protection from black makes me wary.

anotak · Sep 3, 2013

had a 6 person draft. Basics got separated after so I'm not sure of them. This was my first draft of the cube.

- I force drafted aggro because I wanted to see what it's like, I first picked Firemane Avenger. I normally don't draft aggro decks and I'm not very good at it, although I'm fine at actually playing aggro decks in constructed. Mr. Gruul Aggro always plays red aggro of some form, the two of us felt that aggro was very weak. Needs work here. There's probably too much removal, and the aggressive threats aren't efficient enough or resistant enough to removal.
- Game 1 of the America vs Esper match ended by mill in the Esper Deck's favor, mainly because of a Fact or Fiction. This might be showing a problem with the cube but the two players said they actually enjoyed that particular game a lot, and they are both more experienced cubers than me.
- due to Tangle Wire and Dawnglare Invoker, I ended up with a 16/16 Gideon's Avenger in one game.
- Chainering back a Broodmate Dragon and Skinrender was pretty brutal
- Genesis Wave for 12 happened twice, I didn't expect to see that
- I'm wondering how the 4c deck would've done against the blue decks
- All in all I got mostly positive responses to the draft and some ideas on how to improve the list. Some suggestions were given for cuts and stuff too so that helps a lot.

first pick: Precursor Golem
Jund Ramp 3-0

Jund Ramp 3-0

First pick: Day of Judgment
lost to jund
Esper Control 2-1

Esper Control 2-1

First pick: Behemoth Sledge
lost to esper

America Control 2-1

First Pick: Firemane Avenger
This was my deck, pretty bad imo, lost to America and Jund:
boros weenies aggro 1-2

Boros Weenies 1-2

First Pick: Burning-Tree Emissary
Lost to America and Esper
gruul aggro 1-2

Gruul Aggro 1-2

first pick: Genesis Wave
lost to boros, jund, and gruul.
4c good stuff 0-3

4c good stuff 0-3

Jason Waddell · Sep 3, 2013

Thanks for posting these. Your Boros deck has some good aspects, but looks like it misses some of the punch I would expect from an aggro deck. But for a first draft these look very playable. I know my cube started in a much worse place! Keep up the good work.

Eric Chan · Sep 3, 2013

If I could offer one tip, it would be to load up on one-drops. The aggro decks above could really use more punch right out of the gates, and I find that the best way to achieve that is by providing additional redundancy at the low end of the curve. If you use the CubeTutor analysis page, and look at your Curve Charts, a good ballpark to aim for would be to have at least as many one-drops as four-drops.

Sweet draft report, though! Really awesome that you took notes and kept track of all those decks.

anotak · Sep 3, 2013

Thanks for having a look guys, I'll take a look at how to implement the advice about the one drops. Regarding where the cube is I had the benefit of looking at the other lists on here and reading a ton of articles/podcasts, both the ones y'all did and some on other sites. Also I had the input from this thread and my cubing friends looking at the list. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that. Still got a lot of improvement to do though.

Need to get a hold of a Grafted Wargear and Bonesplitter

anotak · Sep 6, 2013

Had a 5 man today. I've made quite a few changes to hopefully improve aggro in the cube but only selesnya was drafted for that. I last picked a hellrider. Not surprised though, nobody there today plays aggro as their main thing.
- the 3 color multicolor guys are getting picked early and getting played which is completely unlike what I've heard/read about 3 color cards in cubes, but I think that's a symptom of something really weird going on. there were three 4c decks, is my manafixing too good? Is this even a problem? I don't know. I don't think I mind there being a ton of 3/4c decks, but it is really weird.
- I'm starting to think there is too much removal or something? The majority of matches are very durdly. Now we've had 3 games end by decking (not in one draft i don't mean, just over 2 drafts and a 2man grid draft) and I don't feel like that should be that common. Then again all those involve blue decks. Maybe blue decks need something that lets them control the board and also end the game at the same time. My first thought is something like Nephalia Drownyard but that seems sort of bad to be on the receiving end of in a draft where there's no guarantee there will be a way to fight back... The match in particular I kept recurring things like Fleshbag Marauder against his Firemane Angel and I eventually decked him while he sort of had 'control' of the game in the sense that he was at over 20 and I was at 3 while he had a hand full of removal for all my creatures. Maybe that's just a fault of him only having 3 creatures though?
- the value reanimator deck I played is one of my favorite archetypes so I had a lot of fun. Attrition, Fleshbag Marauder, Unburial Rites, Makeshift Mannequin are some of my favorite cards. I think I like Varolz, the Scar-Striped a lot, this was the first time I've ever gotten to play it.
- My control opponent hit my mannequin'd Ink-Eyes with Aegis Angel's ability making me sac it. Thought that was a neat play, and it probably won him that game.
- We were discussing potential graveyard hate, because it might be needed.
- Speaking of which, the Dark Bant deck did some neat stuff like enlisted wurm cascade into Creeping Renaissance returning 5 creatures. also Gifts for 3 creatures and renaissance, or gifts for those and Increasing Ambition.
- Everyone seemed happy except the fellow playing WUBR control. Among other things he was asking for Day of Judgment to be replaced by wrath proper. There's only 5 creatures with regenerate and only 2 of them are huge threats (ink-eyes and varolz). I don't have any so I'd probably have to shell out cash for them, and honestly I'm not even sure it's needed. There's some pretty decent reason wotc switched over to Day and I'm not going to be adding a thrun or ascetic anytime soon because I hate cards like that. Am I wrong here?

decks:
3-0 with a bye
First Pick: Bituminous Blast
brug planet value

2-1 lost to brug
first pick Jade Mage I think. I believe he forced this strategy.
gw elves/tokens

First Pick: Staff of Nin
1-1 drop. Lost to Selesnya
Dark Bant control

Junk Rites/Mannequin
1-2 Lost to BRUG valuetown and GW tokens
First pick: Precursor Golem
this was my deck. white was a splash for unburial rites only, but in a post board game against the control deck game 3 I beat I sided in plains and Seance and World Queller and they were very strong in that matchup. Despite my record all my matches were 1-2 and I felt pretty good about the deck

WUBR control
first pick: Venser, Shaper Savant
1-2 lost to dark bant and Junk rites, had a bye

Eric Chan · Sep 6, 2013

Nice report! For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of Day of Judgment over Wrath of God, so much so that I've doubled up on Day in my Modern cube even though I could easily run Wrath in concert. Regeneration isn't overpowered as it is, and with other cards like Incinerate also nuking regenerators, I see no reason to further hose the few worthwhile cards with it.

If you want to send a message that aggro has improved from earlier iterations of your cube, the best bet is to force the archetype yourself, and then beat everyone else at the table with it.

If you yourself still don't feel comfortable diving into the archetype, it's unlikely others in your group will want to be the guinea pig, so you may need to boost the number of playables in aggro until you have no qualms about changing direction and jumping into the deck mid-pack.

anotak · Sep 6, 2013

Eric Chan said:
Nice report! For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of Day of Judgment over Wrath of God, so much so that I've doubled up on Day in my Modern cube even though I could easily run Wrath in concert. Regeneration isn't overpowered as it is, and with other cards like Incinerate also nuking regenerators, I see no reason to further hose the few worthwhile cards with it.

If you want to send a message that aggro has improved from earlier iterations of your cube, the best bet is to force the archetype yourself, and then beat everyone else at the table with it. If you yourself still don't feel comfortable diving into the archetype, it's unlikely others in your group will want to be the guinea pig, so you may need to boost the number of playables in aggro until you have no qualms about changing direction and jumping into the deck mid-pack.

I think I might soon, but since this was still one of the first drafts I wanted to draft a reanimation deck because nobody has done it yet at all and it's one of my favorite archetypes. That's the reason I force drafted the boros deck in the first draft, where I saw what to improve.

I just remembered that the person who played Selesnya said I should take out Incremental Blight because in this context it was actually stronger than a sweeper because it is 1-sided. I've always thought of the card as "this can't hit all their threats usually" but I guess that doesn't matter.

anotak · Sep 13, 2013

- we were at 10 so 2 people (one being me) sat out and let 8 play. This gave me time to watch matches and picks and ask opinions.
- I have 2 cards missing, this is gonna be a pain to track down, hope it's nothing money
- Somehow during pack 2 someone accidentally picked up someone's pack 3 and it got drafted at the same time, massive confusion ensued but we sorted it out
- Nobody got self-milled this time! progress! still needs work
- Black probably still too strong. There were 3 green/black players sitting in a row who all managed to draft decent to great decks and had thought green/black felt open the whole draft. WHAT. What did i mess up here. They were also bordered on both sides by another black player....
- There were also 3 players in a row in some form of blue/red.
- Aggro can be good now! still not where i want it at all, I need some stuff like Hero of Oxid Ridge and Accorder Paladin still
- turn 1 arbor elf turn 2 entomb woodfall primus turn 3 makeshift mannequin seems wayyyy too fast and unfair, but is that just a nut draw? Can i write that off as a ridiculous one-off event or do I need to fix something?
- Gifts for Firemane Angel, Think Twice, Mystic Retrieval, and Desperate Ravings
- Electrolyze a Precursor Golem and follow that with Rolling Temblor
- "Seaside Citadel, go." "ok" "Swamp, Shrine of Burning Rage" "what???"
- Entomber Exarch is amazing, I've seen it do a TON of work over the past several drafts.

Instead of putting these in order of placing I think I'm going to put these in order around the table going left starting from 1st place (left-right-left 15 card packs):
first pick: Dark Impostor
he was planning on building a deck that beats the successful decks from previous drafts, seems to have worked!
3-0
Firemane Grixis

Grixis feat. Firemane Angel

2-1
first pick: sire of insanity
he saw aggro was open so he went into it. It sucks he had to play against the Varolz deck first round, I think this deck might be really strong against the slower decks that have been dominating the previous drafts. I had him play the winner afterwards and he won game 1 very convincingly and game 2 was land flood after getting rolling temblor'd, game 3 was very close. He played a ton of games outside the matches themselves and while the Golgari Varolz deck beat him something like 8-1 total, he didn't drop a single game to the UWR and woodfall primus Junk Reanimator.
Gruul Aggro

Gruul Aggro

1-2
first pick: Hellrider
He first picked hellrider and second picked Wonder, he didn't really seem to have a plan going on.
American / UWR

UWR

2-1
first pick: Cruel Ultimatum
Same player tried to hit us with the rerun
BURg Valuetown 2.0

BURg Valuetown 2.0

first pick: Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
0-3
first time at my cube, I didn't get to see a lot of his picks or his matches because he was sitting in a weird place where it was hard to get to see what he was doing
Ink-Eyes Grixis Control

Grixis feat Ink-Eyes

First Pick: Chainer, Dementia Master
1-2
Junk Reanimator feat Chainer

Junk Reanimator feat Chainer

First pick: Imperious Perfect
1-2
first time cuber. This deck is really neat but I think it's a little weak against the other decks other than the aggro
Golgari Midrange

Golgari Midrange

first pick: Increasing Ambition
1-2

Junk Reanimator feat Woodfall Primus

Eric Chan · Sep 13, 2013

Wow. Good job recording all those decklists. That must be a ton of work for you each draft!

anotak said:
- we were at 10 so 2 people (one being me) sat out and let 8 play. This gave me time to watch matches and picks and ask opinions.

If you want to prevent this from happening in the future - I mean, sitting out always sucks - you could prepare a booster pack of sixty-odd cards to inject into your cube for these exact scenarios, especially if you have a heads up that there's going to be more than eight. Each of ten people would get three fourteen-card boosters, and everyone's happy.

anotak said:
- Somehow during pack 2 someone accidentally picked up someone's pack 3 and it got drafted at the same time, massive confusion ensued but we sorted it out

This happens a lot with beginners, because there's so many piles of cards moving around (the queued packs coming the drafter beside you, the drafted cards for your deck, and the undrafted packs). I used to institute a rule where players would put their cell phones on top of the undrafted packs, so nobody would ever grab them by mistake. It was very effective at training people not to goof grab every pile of cards in front of them.

That Gruul aggro deck looks like it could still use waaay more one drops, though I suppose that with the humungous pile of two's, it's fast enough in your current environment. But a Goblin Guide or even a Kird Ape would go a long way.

Jason Waddell · Sep 13, 2013

anotak said:
- Somehow during pack 2 someone accidentally picked up someone's pack 3 and it got drafted at the same time, massive confusion ensued but we sorted it out

We put poker chips on top of the undrafted packs, so this never happens anymore.

I'm not sure whether it's your players or the cube itself, but some of those curves are... well... a little gross, let's say. Maybe it's worth looking at the curves of each of your "archetypes". Some of those decks look awful 2-drop heavy.

anotak · Sep 14, 2013

Jason Waddell said:
We put poker chips on top of the undrafted packs, so this never happens anymore.

I'm not sure whether it's your players or the cube itself, but some of those curves are... well... a little gross, let's say. Maybe it's worth looking at the curves of each of your "archetypes". Some of those decks look awful 2-drop heavy.

Eric Chan said:
Wow. Good job recording all those decklists. That must be a ton of work for you each draft!

If you want to prevent this from happening in the future - I mean, sitting out always sucks - you could prepare a booster pack of sixty-odd cards to inject into your cube for these exact scenarios, especially if you have a heads up that there's going to be more than eight. Each of ten people would get three fourteen-card boosters, and everyone's happy.

This happens a lot with beginners, because there's so many piles of cards moving around (the queued packs coming the drafter beside you, the drafted cards for your deck, and the undrafted packs). I used to institute a rule where players would put their cell phones on top of the undrafted packs, so nobody would ever grab them by mistake. It was very effective at training people not to goof grab every pile of cards in front of them.

That Gruul aggro deck looks like it could still use waaay more one drops, though I suppose that with the humungous pile of two's, it's fast enough in your current environment. But a Goblin Guide or even a Kird Ape would go a long way.

I'm recording the lists because it is too hard to make real improvements without being able to go back and look at this information. It is also too easy to remember the things I want to remember about people's decks. There's also some cards that players have told me is awful and then I consider cutting it and I look at the lists and see it is getting put into decks placing well.
Putting something (poker chips, phones, anything) on top sounds great, thanks for the idea.

I definitely have a problem missing 1-drops for aggro especially and I need to get my hands on more. I put in Reckless Waif and Goblin Arsonist and Dryad Militant along with other aggro 1 drops because I saw them in other people's lists. They seemed like they'd help but the guy who drafted Gruul picked them and then left them in his sideboard because he said they are unplayable garbage (at least those 3 I remember being in his sideboard for sure). I don't know if he's right or if he's just being weird. It's hard to tell with him because he's mostly a good player but his card evaluation is utterly insane by most people's standards. Are they unplayable garbage? If they are, why are other people running them in their cubes? Once I get a chance to order some cards I am definitely getting a goblin guide, lavamancer, etc. It has been hard to get ahold of these locally like how I normally would because everyone else is trying to be budget with their standard and modern decks and play red!

The two-dropness of the grixis deck I think was mostly the drafter's issue but I need to fiddle with it.

Jason Waddell · Sep 14, 2013

Dryad Militant is most certainly not unplayable.

anotak · Sep 25, 2013

From the 3-0 thread:
my Boros Aggro

anotak said:
Two firsts today:
Aggro won my cube, and I won my cube. Silly that I wasn't able to win with archetypes I actually like playing but hey at least aggro can win! I force drafted red, first picking Slayers' Stronghold over Fact or Fiction which is basically my favorite card. There was another player drafting aggro so i wasn't able to get rewarded for hoping Hellrider would wheel (I knew Lightning Bolt would get taken by the not-aggro decks and hellrider went last pick last draft). I know I have some questionable cards like Grinning Ignus (which I might just cut from the cube entirely), but I was sort of indecisive about my second color other than red.

Here's the other lists, we only had 5 people unfortunately, though a 6th drafted and then dropped before making his deck. He had Orzhov stuff but something came up. Apparently a second Vivid Meadow in the same type of sleeve got mixed in with the cube and got drafted too. Technically I was 4-0 with a bye because there were two 3-0 w/ bye and another 2-0 so I had a playoff with the other aggro player to decide who played against the BRUG value in 'grand finals'. I won all my matches 2-0 as well. The Junk player was very happy with his deck. The other aggro player seemed like he was having a bad day, he scooped to my turn 2 thalia without even seeing what he was going to draw. I didn't get as detailed notes about first picks and such because I forgot my notebook at home. I cut grinning ignus this morning, for putting back hissing iguanar.

2-1 w/ no bye (2nd place)
BRUG Discount Value Store

BRUG Discount Value Store

3-1 w/ 1 bye (3rd place)
Gruul Aggro

Gruul Aggro

1-2 no bye (4th)
junk aristocrats

Junk Aristocrats

1-2 w/ 1 bye (5th)
Esper Control

Esper Control

anotak · Sep 27, 2013

I decided I'm going to put things in spoilers to make things easier to navigate

- We agreed all guildgates came in untapped during this draft. Temporary fix/experiment for my budget regarding the manabase.
- I wonder if dedicated blue control is weak now. Can't seem to keep up against faster aggro, and it can't keep up with the card advantagey ridiculousness going on in the non-aggro decks. I'm not going to make any big changes here yet but I've got my eye on this.
- cutting spell burst for something, useless against the typical decks of this cube, absolutely murdered the izzet delver deck that was pretty unique

my post from the 3-0 thread:
Rb Control

anotak said:
I first picked shard phoenix, this is probably the most fun I've had cubing yet.

I had 2 really close games:
In the finals game 1, I was at 1 and my opponent was at 2, and I controlled:
Journeyer's Kite, Gilded Lotus, Oblivion Stone, Staff of Nin, Sire of Insanity, Nyxathid
and my opponent had Precursor Golem in play and Kederekt Leviathan in his grave. So he swung out, activated o-stone and then activated staff and kite in response to bring him to 1 and get another land to thin, and then passed it back to me, and I managed to topdeck Anger.

In another game, I held off my opponent's creatures+Kessig Wolf Run with trading post lifegain and removal and blockers while having out journeyer's kite + staff of nin + countryside crusher activating every turn until the point where I had 3 cards left in library and I was at 3 life. He was at 17. He swung with his last creature, Nimble Mongoose and so I blocked with my 3/3 Countryside Crusher (it somehow had -1/-1 counters placed on it so it was back down to 3/3) and sac'd w/ Trading Post to return steel hellkite. I played my morbid Brimstone Volley eot bring him to 12. I had anger in my yard, and drew 2 of my last 3 cards. I played my topdeck'd lavamancer, and the hellkite swinging for 6. Ping with lavamancer and staff, for another 3, and another 3 during my upkeep, killing him just barely.

Rb Control