Astra's 450 unpowered cube!

[astraedm]

Cube List: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/67510

Hello all! Longtime lurker here, and I've finally got the free time to post a cube thread for my personal project! I've been looking at ideas from a ton of different people on here and it's really made me excited to work on my own, so I'm excited to get some feedback from everyone here. Full disclosure, this cube is entirely theorycrafted right now, as I don't have a playgroup or the cube together currently or in the forseeable future, so I haven't been able to really playtest . Anyway, here's a bit of a writeup on what design strategies I'm working with.

• Lower power level to enable more cool shit to happen. This includes removal being slightly worse and the removal of most GRBS.
• Singleton breaks to enable more cool shit to happen
• Flexibility between archetypes
• Modern border only (might end up proxying some cards with new borders that fit too perfectly to exclude)
• No ULD (yet)
  
  
  Archetype Breakdowns​
  The Blink Deck ​
  Pretty straightforward. Play dudes with ETB effects and bounce or flicker or blink them. All the usual suspects are here, and the main splash color you get is green for more payoffs, though black works with it as well.
  
  
  
  
  Artifacts + Reanimator ​
  UB is focused on looting, milling, or cycling away big threats to reanimate them for value, as well as a control package. UB Also shares half of the artifact support with UR for a Grixis artifact deck, and reanimator bleeds into Esper and Sultai as well. It's worth noting that there aren't any truly busted Tinker targets here (usually Mindslaver, Gearhulks, or Metalwork Collosus), so it works as an artifact payoff that isn't as gamebreaking as t3 Inwell Leviathan or Sundering Titan.​
  
  
  Sac n Steal / Madness Vamps ​
  BR functions as an recursive aggro deck with the mid/lategame plan of using threaten effects to sacrifice the opponent's creatures for value. Madness and a small amount of vamp tribal lives here as well. Most crossover happens with Green here, creating a grindy Jund 'Em style deck with sacrifice effects or a dedicated madness theme with the madness cards in RG. A slower, staxier RB control build is also an option, with plenty of removal and midrange finishers.​
  
  
  
  Madness / Pumpspell Aggro ​
  
  RG can be build as a midrange or aggro deck getting value from being able to madness threats out at instant speed, or as a aggro / combo deck with pump spells and double strike creatures. Crossover into Naya happens frequently as RW has a double strike theme as well, and Jund gets a dedicated madness deck as well.​
  
  
  
  Enchantress / Tokens ​
  The GW deck has the option of going wide with tokens or playing a slower game getting value off of enchantresses and going tall with auras. Can cross over into an Abzan lifegain deck, a Naya tokens or voltron strategy, and any number of GWx enchantress decks.​
  
  
  
  Gain n Drain / Enchantment Prison ​
  WB gets the classic attrition deck with a lifegain slant. Lifegain can be taken in an aggro direction or a slower control variation, which is typically enchantment based. The enchantment control decks cross over into Esper, and the lifegain decks go into Abzan.​
  
  
  
  Selfmill / Delirium ​
  GB is a graveyard value deck that tries to use its yard as a resource and drown the opponent in card advantage. There's a small delirium theme as well, which plays well with the enchantment and artifact themes, and GB can cross over into the Jund value deck or Sultai reanimator / value deck easily. I'm thinking about doing something with the bunch of lands in grave effects I have in here as well.​
  
  
  
  Draw Go Ramp / Flash Tempo ​
  UG is a different take on the typical ramp-into-fatties deck, where you hold up instant speed ramp spells and control cards with the payoff of any number of recursive instant / sorceries or difficult to remove threats and soft loops. UG can dip into Temur for different removal and ramp targets or Sultai for a grindier game.​
  
  
  
  Artifacts / Spells Matter Recursion ​
  UR gets both of its most popular themes, sharing artifacts with RB and UB and spells matter with RW. This particular breed of spells matter focuses on incremental value through instants and sorceries being recurred with on-cast triggers. It can throw some creatures in to get a Jeskai prowess deck going and works with the big mana that UG brings as well.​
  
  
  
  Equipment / Spells / Tokens ​
  This is perhaps my most ambitious theme and the one that will take the most work to get right. Ideally, RW wants to find a mix of prowess/doublestrike creatures, equipment, and pump spells to play an aggro / tempo game. It can be mixed with G for a Naya tokens and pump spells deck, or U for a Jeskai spells and prowess deck.​
  
  
  
  Monoblack ​
  I decided to support monoblack a bit as I already had a lot of the cards for the archetype in the cube already. It can work as an aggro or reanimator strategy that will occasionally splash blue or white.​
  
  
  
  Other Themes!​
  There's a notable cycling theme in the cube, supported by 2x Astral Slide, 2x Lightning Rift, and 10 fucking copies of Ash Barrens as extra fixing. Cycling gives players decisions to make, smooths draws, reduces nongames, plays well with graveyard interactions, and enables you to play Astral Slide as an archetype, typically in some combination of Naya colors. There are also very loose human, vampire, and zombie synergies in the cube just from the cards that are already there.​
  
  Stuff I'm Worried About​
  I'm working on narrowing the power band a bit, as it's a little odd having Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Nephalia Smuggler in the same cube, but I'm hoping that things can work out where individually powerful and synergistic cards can play together in harmony. I'd love any advice as far as individual card choices, draft archetypes, how the curve looks (I know I need more red 2s for example) or even just making some decks on cubetutor would be great. Glad to finally post on this forum and looking forward to being part of the community!​

 

[Fulcrum]

I drafted your cube after reading your description and it kind of went off of the rails in the middle but I think it ended up alright. My first pick was Smokestack and my second pick was Scrapheap Scrounger. I felt like I was going to be Mono-White Tokens + Smokestack + Thalia, Guardian of Thraben but then Braids, Cabal Minion forced me to commit to the black I was kind of taking in pack 3. (I was taking Green and Black cards when there were no white cards going around.)

WB Stax from CubeTutor.com

There were some neat synergies like the Oaths + Nahiri and some more obvious ones like Tokens + Smokestack. Angel of Invention is neat because it can either make tokens or make be an anthem if there were a bunch of tokens out. Curse of the Shallow Graves seems extremely powerful. Heliod plays well with some of the removal being enchantments, though he doesn't really play well with token creatures. I wanted to play Khemba, Kha Regent but I didn't have any equipment. I like that Nuisance Engine is a defensible pick for this deck. Is Whirlermaker too weak?

I feel like Tinker has a lot of powerful targets as well as all of the turn 2 reanimation spells. I feel like Entomb makes those cards too powerful. (and since this is still theorycraft you can't say your group likes it! But if you like it keep it in.) I like to evaluate these kinds of effects by going worst case scenario and then seeing if I'm ok with that. For example, am I ok with my opponent going Turn 1 Entomb, Turn 2 Animate Dead Eldrazi? Can every color have some sort of answer by turn 2 on the draw? If I'm playing a UG deck am I just going to lose because I had one land out with Remand, Mana Leak, and Memory Lapse in hand when my opponent played Animate Dead? Is Path to Exile a sufficient answer to Myr Battlesphere or Emrakul, the Promised End? (Necromancy + Emrakul make me super nervous in my cube) Obviously that doesn't happen every time but I try to set a "speed limit" for a format and design around that. ie. nothing ridiculous can happen before Turn X.

The only real complaint I have about your cube is that I couldn't take neat cards because they didn't fit into my archetype, which is probably by design, and probably good. In summary I liked my deck and there were neat things going on, but I was sad that I couldn't take Astral Slide late.

 

[astraedm]

Thanks for the comments! I like the worst-case scenario evaluation you've done for reanimator,and I think you may be right that Entomb is a smidge too fast. I like to trim enablers rather than targets in this case, so I feel like Buried Alive may be the way to go. This also opens up space for value strategies to use it to dump stuff in the yard without feeling like it's as much card disadvantage.. Does Reanimator still get to feel like Reanimator doing Reanimator things if I hard cap them to turn 4 onwards? My guess is probably yes, but it's an interesting discussion to have. As far as answers go, I don't like having anything completely unconditional in that's under 3 mana without a real drawback (I.E. forcing color commitment with Anguished Unmaking, permanents lying around for Angelic Purge, etc, so I think that's where I'll cap the speed. I think the risk of taking 13 life from using Death on an Emrakul could be worth leaving that in? Gotta look at what other reanimaton spells are an option.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Would love to see an update on this list sometime; you had some cool ideas here, and I see the list is still active!

 

[astraedm]

Alright, major update time. I've been playing almost weekly with a number of people at my university's Magic club, half of which are experienced and half of which are new to the point of not owning decks. This has made me really evaluate simple, elegant design, archetype-wise and individual card-wise. Sure, I may design my RW decks to tutor out instant speed token generation spells with Sunforger and use Weapons Trainer to anthem the tokens because I control a Sunforger, but without explaining what all of these cards do and how they fit together in a laboriously created Riptidelab forum post that I recite before every draft to the bored faces of people that want to play Magic: the Gathering, it's not a deck that is ever going to come together. Since realizing that I am not as clever a designer as I think I am, I've narrowed down my focus to elegantly designed single cards that make sense in broad archetypes while cutting some (but not all) of my personal sacred cows. I've also upped the power level of answers a little bit, after aggro winning several drafts in a row with different pilots/decks, which is a problem I'm proud to have had. As such, in come Wrath of God and Path to Exile to give slower white decks a better shot.

First of all, updated archetype breakdowns:

Still the Blink Deck ​

UW is still blink, because I cannot think of anything else interesting that it can be doing that isn't killing people with efficient flying creatures. The deck is super fun to play though, and I think Restoration Angel is one of the most perfectly designed cards in MTG. Worth noting that this deck has 3-0d, causing its pilot to sign Reality Acid (pilots of undefeated decks get to sign their favorite card in their deck). I'm psyched to play with Clocknapper in this deck, but it seems like it might encroach into Arcane Savant territory where it gets removed after winning too many games by itself (Arcane got the axe after Crueling people multiple times a game starting on turn 5 and going infinite with Rite of Replication).

Reanimator ​

UB work as either the generic control colors, part of a generally 3 color artifact package which I'll write on later, or reanimator. This deck hasn't 3-0'd yet, but I came very close and even got to do the fabled start on the draw, discard a Kozilek to hand size, bring him back t3 and win play. I like the power level here and wish there was a decent 3cmc modern border reanimation spell, even just like a cmc3 ​

 

[astraedm]

Emrakul is back in! The addition of Wrath of God and Loaming Shaman should be able to keep her in check a bit, but she's staying on the watch list. Took out some of the goodstuffier cards out (seeya Avacyn) to make room for an aristocrats package, supporting Rally the Ancestors and Immortal Servitude as combo/value cards, which are my favorite kind of cards. I like throwing a bone to combo players, especially when it works as a backup plan for otherwise fair decks and the cards do SOMETHING if they're not just killing you. With power level raised a bit, Archangel of Thune is probably back on the table.

 

[astraedm]

GBu Baron Emrakul from CubeTutor.com

This is a sweet one that came up in playtest solitaire drafting. There's so much stuff we aren't playing in the board, too. Ideally you wanna go empty library with the help of Mesmeric orb and then use Bow of Nylea to draw whatever you want for the rest of the game. That's as close as I'm getting to Doomsday! If we want to go deeper we can board in a sac outlet (carrion feeder?) and lock them with Clocknapper and Mesmeric orb so they never get an untap! I think this is getting closer to the idea of Baron in a high powered environment.

 

[astraedm]

astraedm's draft of Synergy Cube 450 on 24/12/2017 from CubeTutor.com

Another fun one that came up. This is an example of the gain life/pay life deck coming together, the sort of thing that can pay 5 for reckless spite and still have serra ascendant active. Several combos in here, like squee+trading post or call the bloodline, or going the combo finish route with blood artist+wrath, there's also wrathing with a horse on the board to leave yourself with a 5/5. This deck can take the aggressive or the controlling route with a lot of interesting, resilient finishers! I also like how it sort of merges the tokens and lifegain themes of WB.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Squee doesn't feel great here with only two discard outlets, or am I missing something?

 

[astraedm]

Squee doesn't feel great here with only two discard outlets, or am I missing something?

Perhaps I’m overvaluing him, I haven’t had the chance to play any games with him in person as of yet. I would think he plays the role of an infinite chump blocker until you’re set up to take over the game with a discard outlet, but there’s always the chance that’s slow compared to some of the faster clocks in my environment.

 

[astraedm]

I noticed that the vast majority of people that weren't me drafting my cube online ended up in blue in some way, with lots of UB and UR decks. I'm wondering if that's an issue or if people just really like drafting blue. I did a bit of an update as to where guild cards go, giving Izzet Signet, Talisman of Indulgence, and Talisman of Dominance slots in their respective guilds (the ones that care about artifacts) and cutting a guild card from each, because I think that might have been an over-saturation of perceived gold effects in those particular colors. GW auras also finally got the axe, leaving Selesnya to be the creature value/recursion color, with Renegade Rallier coming in to announce that. I'm still keeping a few enchantments-matter cards in cause I like it as a nice subtheme. Open to suggestions for interesting things to do with GW that aren't tokens or enchantments.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Perhaps I’m overvaluing him, I haven’t had the chance to play any games with him in person as of yet. I would think he plays the role of an infinite chump blocker until you’re set up to take over the game with a discard outlet, but there’s always the chance that’s slow compared to some of the faster clocks in my environment.

I was talking about that deck specifically, two discards outlets and one red mana source means he'll be a dead card most of the time.

I noticed that the vast majority of people that weren't me drafting my cube online ended up in blue in some way, with lots of UB and UR decks. I'm wondering if that's an issue or if people just really like drafting blue. I did a bit of an update as to where guild cards go, giving Izzet Signet, Talisman of Indulgence, and Talisman of Dominance slots in their respective guilds (the ones that care about artifacts) and cutting a guild card from each, because I think that might have been an over-saturation of perceived gold effects in those particular colors. GW auras also finally got the axe, leaving Selesnya to be the creature value/recursion color, with Renegade Rallier coming in to announce that. I'm still keeping a few enchantments-matter cards in cause I like it as a nice subtheme. Open to suggestions for interesting things to do with GW that aren't tokens or enchantments.

I think these are your problems



And to a lesser extent



The first three are a lot better than everything else, and two can be easily splashed. If you're going for power you just take them. Your blue gold cards are also very strong and draw other colours into blue. Maybe look at your top picks in cubetutor

 

[astraedm]

I think these are your problems



And to a lesser extent



The first three are a lot better than everything else, and two can be easily splashed. If you're going for power you just take them. Your blue gold cards are also very strong and draw other colours into blue. Maybe look at your top picks in cubetutor

Thanks for your help! I think FoF, Ashiok (pet card of mine though they are), and Cruise are easy cuts. Dig Through Time i like as a control incentive that is difficult to splash, Tinker I think is fine due to its role as a combo piece and my tuned down finishers, and i’m pretty 50/50 on Mulldrifter. I love the design of the card and it plays well with a lot of themes I’m supporting, but it may just be too generically good.

Another issue, I think, is that the golds for these sections really scream “THIS IS A FAMILIAR ARCHETYPE YOU CAN DRAFT! PLAY THE ARTIFACT OR THE SPELLS DECK” in a super evocative way, with other colors less so.

 

[sigh]

Two cards from your CT top picks add onto Alfonzo's list and really highlight that you have very strong blue cards from every angle:

These cards are both insanely strong and can provide backbone to decks without much effort. And then this card I would not want to see in this format with such a heavy blink theme:

The card is already really good on its own, and then Hard-locks aren't the most fun thing ever, especially with the two card combos in-theme. Bonus points for the Kiki-Jiki lock

Speaking of that, I personally think Brago, King Eternal is much too on-the nose for a deck that already abuses the over-efficiency of etbs. Venser seems fine in this role.

Edit: are Astral Slide and Lightning Rift custom cards IRL? I'm not seeing any cycling theme to speak of, 6 ash barrens certainly won't cut it.

 

[astraedm]

Two cards from your CT top picks add onto Alfonzo's list and really highlight that you have very strong blue cards from every angle:

These cards are both insanely strong and can provide backbone to decks without much effort. And then this card I would not want to see in this format with such a heavy blink theme:

The card is already really good on its own, and then Hard-locks aren't the most fun thing ever, especially with the two card combos in-theme. Bonus points for the Kiki-Jiki lock

Speaking of that, I personally think Brago, King Eternal is much too on-the nose for a deck that already abuses the over-efficiency of etbs. Venser seems fine in this role.

Edit: are Astral Slide and Lightning Rift custom cards IRL? I'm not seeing any cycling theme to speak of, 6 ash barrens certainly won't cut it.

Slide and Rift are not customs. I started the cube with a pretty major cycling theme that gradually was reduced over time, and may be too weak to support now. I weep for no modern-border Miscalculation. Thinking about errata-ing in the "cycle or discard" wording from Drake Haven on them.

I think a lot of these issues stem from me being sort of at-odds with where I want my power level. I've modeled a lot of my design choices off of your cube in particular, Sigh, and I think I'm shooting for a similar, if a bit higher power level than your environment. I guess it comes down to whether a buff to answers against stuff like The Scarab God or nerfing the threats themselves is more where I want to be. For instance, Splinter Twin combo and lock both require a repeatable blink or copy effect and a payoff that is interactable via creature removal. Clocknapper, Pestermite, and Felidar Guardian are all interesting and powerful creatures on their own that do things outside of being a combo piece, and I do want combo to be part of my environment, as long as answers are properly seeded. On a quick check, counting counterspells, there ~44 instant speed answer effects that can disrupt the Clocknapper/Pestermite/Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker end of the combo, and the number drops by 3 or 4 if your combo piece is Felidar Guardian. The only color combination with no access to these effects is mono-green, which has come together 0 times in the cube's history. Is that a high enough concentration that drafters will feel they have a fair shot against combo? I'm not sure, and that's why I'm enlisting some outside help as I don't get to cube IRL nearly as much as I would like to (Out of curiosity, there are 10 cards that cleanly deal with The Scarab God, not including counterspells, where it jumps up to around 25, or graveyard hate, mostly in green, about 5 or 6 of those).

On a side note, what would a more interesting slot than brago be, do you think? Aethermage's Touch, Vanish into Memorymaybe a more generic control card like Sphinx's Revelation?

 

[sigh]

I'd say the rift/slide are not worth it as is, without some errata. the cycle or discard errata sounds cool. Here and there throughout the list I see a few vestigial cards. Might be good to go over and see if any cards are no longer relevant. I'm seeing a little heroic without any really aura/pump theme, for example

Awesome you are considering my cube for your choices! Explains some of the déjà vu from looking at the list. With that in mind, my environment is not designed to handle true combo decks, so it's something to think about re: things like kiki-combo. I'm honestly not sure the best way to handle combo at my power level fairly. To simulate the combo-feels, I've supplanted combos with two things: value engines and pseudo-combos. First one of those that comes to mind is

Cards that can quickly/immediately close the game when combined, but aren't truly 'combos'. For true combo, you really need enough redundancy of the effect and enough ways to deal with it. Also, can the combo deck function with it's combo defeated? I'd say you have the redundancy, maybe even more redundancy than needed (Clocknapper, for one). Answers are a little more tricky. Instant speed is the best bet here, but that can crank up the heat against Gx midrange also... maybe conditional removal that is specifically better against those creatures (disfigure, burst lightning for examples). As for the third thing, find/make a deck for it, rather than just having a pile of parts. RUG deck? America? If you carve out a specific archetype for it, that might develop answers for it too.

Neat variety of answers for this deck:


As for the Scarab God, I just think the card is busted. You don't need it for a reanimation deck to work in UB, and it doesn't need or even want to be in that kind of deck either (UB midrange = better). Ancient Excavation is working well over here as a powerful discard outlet/hand filterer for the GY decks.

Here's a UW deck I just drafted

UW blink from CubeTutor.com

Blink was the overwhelmingly most supported thing to do, so it's what I did. every pack it seemed I was hitting a new blink effect. This deck honestly has too many blink effects and not enough to blink! Sure partly the draft and my picks that caused that, but also the raw selection. Your white four drops are only blink effects

Something else might serve a better purpose in one of these slots, over probably stag. How about something that helps out other color pairs? Like WB or RW, with ranger of eos. Besides all that, this deck is really a prison deck above all. My main goal was to get the clocknapper into play and reset every turn. there are at least three separate repeatable locks with her in the deck. Don't like that card.

Brago is UW and so signals the deck well, but I don't think you have to fear the deck being under-signaled or under-drafted. I don't think you need to replace it with another blink effect either. My most recent favorite UW card is definitely

But it is a tad generic, and in the past I have liked

The mini-recursion is a pretty unique angle to UW, and a solid card otherwise.

 

[astraedm]

Awesome analysis, thank you! Took a look at the other two decks you drafted and RUG control looks bonkers. I really like Avacyn's Judgment in that list as early removal / a mana sink finisher late. Not playing street wraith in the golgari list with death's shadow? Also, quick cool note, the GB aggro deck was not something I planned for. Emergent decks! I like the high concentration of one drops to enable Vengevine here.


It's funny, I had the opposite problem a while back where I wasn't supporting enough blink enablers, so I must have wheeled overboard there at some point! Stag > Ranger of Eos is a cool little buff to the life-matters deck and promotes an interesting draft strategy (1 drops matter) so i'm super down. The combo deck is solidly in Jeskai with the Saheeli+Felidar and Blink creature+Kiki all being within those colors. Eager Beaver is probably getting the axe, as funny as the infinibeaver strategy is, given the fact that it's out of color.

Going with valorous stance > Last Breath to hit Guardian, Kiki, and Clocknapper, as well as hitting 114 creatures instead of 45 and exile being relevant. Strangling Soot is a sweet one I'm considering that hits 135 creatures in my format, ie "every utility creature and nearly every aggro creature", but my black section is super tight, will have to check after I cull some stuff. Thank god it's vacation!

 

[astraedm]

Update time! The biggest updates I've done were the removal of the cycling and enchantress packages, as the decks were clunky when I forced them and they never came together. I've added an aggressive suite of combat tricks, cantrips, and life-paying effects (Gitaxian Probe, Apostle's Blessing) to support a neat little Death's Shadow archetype. Volcano Hellion is by far my favorite spicy addition in that regard (Whip of Erebos and Hornet Nest anyone?

All but 1 Ash Barrens are now out, sold them into the spike to get some sweet stuff like Vendilion Clique and finally purchase a From the Vault Transform to get all the flipwalkers, upgrade Delver of Secrets, and try out Huntmaster of the Fells.


Managed to get a draft off on Saturday, and the winning list was a sweet one.

3-0 Abzan LD from CubeTutor.com

This list did some of the grossest things I've ever seen, like coming back from one life by casting Animate Dead on Acidic Slime, blowing up a land, sacrificing Acidic Slime to Ayli, then casting Renegade Rallier to bring back Animate Dead on Acidic Slime to blow up another land, then doing the whole thing again by sacrificing Rallier to Ayli and returning it with Meren during upkeep. This deck also completed the only perfect victory in the cube's history, leaving the opponent with no cards in hand or board. The pilot ended up signing Ayli and I'm so glad she had a chance to shine!

Other lessons learned from the draft: Skilled player splashed a 4th color in an otherwise thematic and interesting midrange deck just for The Scarab God. He's out. I ended up playing Grixis Death's Shadow, which was a blast, and had one game where Clocknapper forced a concession because the opponent didn't understand the card. The combination of extremely strong and extremely weird isn't a pleasing one and leaves people feeling janked out. She's out. That's 2 3-0 green decks in a row though, and I'm pleased that I finally got the color up there and ready to go. This also marks the end of the midrange drought, with aggro finally being toned down to an appropriate power level and control having the appropriate tools to provide interesting games against both styles of deck.

 

[Dom Harvey]

I'm glad someone else appreciates Ayli! A 2/3 Deathtouch for 2 mana is already great and Ayli has pounds of icing on top of that