Sup all, going to start this thread as a place to write tournament reports, updates, and kind of gather my thoughts about my environment.
I've been happy overall with the games my cube is generating, but something I've noticed is that a lot of games go very long. This might be a product of playing with a lot of inexperienced players (I draft with my university's magic club each Saturday night, so we get a lot of people with varying experience). This has even led to me prioritizing drafting aggressive decks to ensure that games finish in a timely manner, lol. Maybe I'm too entrenched in MTG to approach this from the perspective of someone who plays once a week and has to read all the text on a card every time cause they haven't memorized it. Food for thought.
Alright, last night's draft! I actually sat this one out because we had such a big turnout, which I was pretty psyched about. This let me look around at what was being drafted and watch pretty much all of the games go down. I don't have exact decklists, but I'll post approximations so you can see what the average deck looks like.
There were some bangers for sure. Every archetype was represented, with combo-control featuring Thousand-Year Storm and combo-aggro mono-red featuring Arclight Phoenix taking home 3-0 records, with a midrange/ramp deck with a combo finish using Star of Extinction and Boros Reckoner going 2-1 and a solid Abzan graveyard value deck joining in 4th place. Other lists that didn't quite get there were a really mean UB control deck that suffered from a few questionable card choices and some rough matchups/tight play on the opponents' end, and several 4 color piles from the more inexperienced drafters, as well as a lean and mean UW midrange list that only dropped games to the 3-0 decks.
The first match I watched was Mac on mono red vs. Shawn on UW Midrange.
(Unexpected Potential on Adanto Vanguard)
This thing ran insane all night, 3-0ing without ever drawing Hazoret. The small aristocrats engine with Goblin Bombardment and Young Pyromancer, Perilous Myr, and Kari Zev, Skyship Raider was a powerhouse, providing extra reach and some tricky lines to navigate. Highlight of the night: UW opponent has stabilized at a low life total, draw go happens for a while at a board stall, but once the red deck hits 6 lands, he casts Tormenting Voice, ditching Phoenix to draw 2. Then goes Reckless Charge, Flashback on Monastery Swiftspear and Soul-Scar Mage, triggering Young Pyromancer twice, then attacking all and sacrificing the blocked ones to Goblin Bombardment to get in for lethal. *Vomit*
This one is pretty good-stuff, but all of these cards are skill-testing on their own or create interesting and complex gameplay, which is more important to me than feeling cute as a designer. The match against the red deck was very close, and always transitioned into the reach phase, which was good for tension and making both players feel like they had a shot. Brightling proved beatable that night, which was good as I was beginning to worry about the power level. Dragonlord Ojutai did exactly what I wanted, being a control finisher that is hard to interact with but not impossible.
Can't remember what mana fixing this deck had, (I think at least 5 pieces), but it had some of the coolest plays of the night, including upkeep mystical tutor for Nexus of Fate with Thousand Year Storm out for 2 turns, and then Staggershock to rebound for a free spell next turn to increase storm count and double [/c]Dig Through Time[/c] into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Restoration Angel with counter backup. As Foretold was also great here, allowing for easier double and triple spelling. This list is probably very fortunate that it didn't run into the mono red deck. Finally, a true combo deck succeeding that isn't twin (even it's sort of twin-adjacent)!
This was an ambitious splash for sure, but the results were pretty good. Oracle of Mul Daya and Doom Whisperer are a combo for sure. The pilot was also a big fan of the "skip my land drop as a discard outlet" strategy, to mixed results. Llife // Death continues to be a flexible all star, combo-killing with Nantuko Husk and working as a reanimation spell or hasty army for a turn. Meren of Clan Nel Toth is on the watch list for power level, but hasn't been too oppressive. This list pivots aggressive to midrange very well, and has good closing power with fliers due to the white splash and Doom Whisperer.
This one is the list I was most excited about, and I'm glad that it did well! Lots of tutors and redundancy for the combo, and I believe he actually got disrupted and then put it back together in RG a couple times! Fight with Fire got kicked for lethal multiple times. This list has a TON of X spells, and they performed very well. Flexible and fun. Play more of them! Highlight of the night: the drafter realizing that this deck was supported, putting the whole thing together with what can only be described as manic glee, and then nearly fainting when he got to draw the BEEEEEES token on the dry erase tokens I had just bought. Feels good man.
This list gets an honorary mention for having the most ridiculous board state of Sandwurm Convergence, an 8/8 Hydroid Krasis, and a Kiora, the Crashing Wave emblem at the same time. Another neat thing I saw him do was Daze + Kiora/Lotus Cobra.
Overall, big cube success last night!
Negatives: Had the wise guy doing the griefing strategy of just taking every non basic land to make sure nobody gets mana fixing, to the detriment of everyone's deck including his own. He didn't win a match, and everyone's mana was worse. Not sure how to curb that, honestly.
Some of the more inexperienced players are still having trouble not drafting 5 color 5 drops, and don't seem interested in learning why that doesn't work. Can that be mitigated on my end? Does it matter? Should I just let it happen?
Positives: The new changes worked really well, and I removed a lot of the traps (Laboratory Maniac, Mesmeric Orb), and trimmed the power on some archetypes (Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Splinter Twin got the axe). Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance have been fantastic for cube, and I believe have the highest individual set percentage in my cube so far. Foiling has also progressed to over 50%! It's good to be back at college where I can play regularly!
I've been happy overall with the games my cube is generating, but something I've noticed is that a lot of games go very long. This might be a product of playing with a lot of inexperienced players (I draft with my university's magic club each Saturday night, so we get a lot of people with varying experience). This has even led to me prioritizing drafting aggressive decks to ensure that games finish in a timely manner, lol. Maybe I'm too entrenched in MTG to approach this from the perspective of someone who plays once a week and has to read all the text on a card every time cause they haven't memorized it. Food for thought.
Alright, last night's draft! I actually sat this one out because we had such a big turnout, which I was pretty psyched about. This let me look around at what was being drafted and watch pretty much all of the games go down. I don't have exact decklists, but I'll post approximations so you can see what the average deck looks like.
There were some bangers for sure. Every archetype was represented, with combo-control featuring Thousand-Year Storm and combo-aggro mono-red featuring Arclight Phoenix taking home 3-0 records, with a midrange/ramp deck with a combo finish using Star of Extinction and Boros Reckoner going 2-1 and a solid Abzan graveyard value deck joining in 4th place. Other lists that didn't quite get there were a really mean UB control deck that suffered from a few questionable card choices and some rough matchups/tight play on the opponents' end, and several 4 color piles from the more inexperienced drafters, as well as a lean and mean UW midrange list that only dropped games to the 3-0 decks.
The first match I watched was Mac on mono red vs. Shawn on UW Midrange.
3-0 Mono Red Phoenix from CubeTutor.com
 | | | |
| |||
(Unexpected Potential on Adanto Vanguard)
This thing ran insane all night, 3-0ing without ever drawing Hazoret. The small aristocrats engine with Goblin Bombardment and Young Pyromancer, Perilous Myr, and Kari Zev, Skyship Raider was a powerhouse, providing extra reach and some tricky lines to navigate. Highlight of the night: UW opponent has stabilized at a low life total, draw go happens for a while at a board stall, but once the red deck hits 6 lands, he casts Tormenting Voice, ditching Phoenix to draw 2. Then goes Reckless Charge, Flashback on Monastery Swiftspear and Soul-Scar Mage, triggering Young Pyromancer twice, then attacking all and sacrificing the blocked ones to Goblin Bombardment to get in for lethal. *Vomit*
2-1 UW Midrange from CubeTutor.com
| | | | | |
| |||||
This one is pretty good-stuff, but all of these cards are skill-testing on their own or create interesting and complex gameplay, which is more important to me than feeling cute as a designer. The match against the red deck was very close, and always transitioned into the reach phase, which was good for tension and making both players feel like they had a shot. Brightling proved beatable that night, which was good as I was beginning to worry about the power level. Dragonlord Ojutai did exactly what I wanted, being a control finisher that is hard to interact with but not impossible.
3-0 Thousand Year Storm from CubeTutor.com
| | | | | |
Can't remember what mana fixing this deck had, (I think at least 5 pieces), but it had some of the coolest plays of the night, including upkeep mystical tutor for Nexus of Fate with Thousand Year Storm out for 2 turns, and then Staggershock to rebound for a free spell next turn to increase storm count and double [/c]Dig Through Time[/c] into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Restoration Angel with counter backup. As Foretold was also great here, allowing for easier double and triple spelling. This list is probably very fortunate that it didn't run into the mono red deck. Finally, a true combo deck succeeding that isn't twin (even it's sort of twin-adjacent)!
2-1 Abzan Reanimator Midrange from CubeTutor.com
| | | | | |
| |||||
This was an ambitious splash for sure, but the results were pretty good. Oracle of Mul Daya and Doom Whisperer are a combo for sure. The pilot was also a big fan of the "skip my land drop as a discard outlet" strategy, to mixed results. Llife // Death continues to be a flexible all star, combo-killing with Nantuko Husk and working as a reanimation spell or hasty army for a turn. Meren of Clan Nel Toth is on the watch list for power level, but hasn't been too oppressive. This list pivots aggressive to midrange very well, and has good closing power with fliers due to the white splash and Doom Whisperer.
2-1 RG Bee Ramp from CubeTutor.com
| | | | |
| ||||
This one is the list I was most excited about, and I'm glad that it did well! Lots of tutors and redundancy for the combo, and I believe he actually got disrupted and then put it back together in RG a couple times! Fight with Fire got kicked for lethal multiple times. This list has a TON of X spells, and they performed very well. Flexible and fun. Play more of them! Highlight of the night: the drafter realizing that this deck was supported, putting the whole thing together with what can only be described as manic glee, and then nearly fainting when he got to draw the BEEEEEES token on the dry erase tokens I had just bought. Feels good man.
2-1 Simic Stuff from CubeTutor.com
| | | | | |
This list gets an honorary mention for having the most ridiculous board state of Sandwurm Convergence, an 8/8 Hydroid Krasis, and a Kiora, the Crashing Wave emblem at the same time. Another neat thing I saw him do was Daze + Kiora/Lotus Cobra.
Overall, big cube success last night!
Negatives: Had the wise guy doing the griefing strategy of just taking every non basic land to make sure nobody gets mana fixing, to the detriment of everyone's deck including his own. He didn't win a match, and everyone's mana was worse. Not sure how to curb that, honestly.
Some of the more inexperienced players are still having trouble not drafting 5 color 5 drops, and don't seem interested in learning why that doesn't work. Can that be mitigated on my end? Does it matter? Should I just let it happen?
Positives: The new changes worked really well, and I removed a lot of the traps (Laboratory Maniac, Mesmeric Orb), and trimmed the power on some archetypes (Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Splinter Twin got the axe). Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance have been fantastic for cube, and I believe have the highest individual set percentage in my cube so far. Foiling has also progressed to over 50%! It's good to be back at college where I can play regularly!
