General Auras--What works? What's worth it?

[Zoss]

I like creatures. You probably like creatures. Creatures are an integral part of Magic. Creatures are an integral part of Cube. The same can be said of lands, instants, sorceries, enchantments, artifacts, and, by now, planeswalkers. But there's one common type of spell that barely shows up in most cubes, and that's the aura. Sure, Pacifism is technically an aura and Rancor isn't exactly rare, but by and large the consensus is that, in the words of a veteran Riptidean, the juice just isn't worth the squeeze in most cases. But what are some cases where the upside outweighs the risks? Or, more importantly, what makes an aura incentivize healthy amounts of risk in our gameplay? There is clearly a tipping point; +20/+20 and unblockable for would be overpowered for most people's cubes and likely unhealthy for the rest. But what are some examples of auras you've found to promote good tension? For context, I'm asking because I like board-based gameplay, and the possibility of promoting a creature into a Baneslayer seems better than trying to hit the saturation point for Baneslayers. My hypothesis going into this is that a good aura must contribute at least one of the following:

a) evasion
a.5) soft evasion (menace, skulk, trample) and something else
b) an absurd amount of stats at a cheap price point (e.g. All that Glitters)
b.5) a way to auto-win combat (deathtouch, first strike) and something else
c) some sort of protection
d) replacement
e) another cool effect that somehow justifies the mana investment (e.g. Splinter Twin)

Does this sound right to you? Incomplete? I'm listing some that I like here, but most are the usual suspects. Please dump your favorites here! Note that I'm not looking for auras that are removal or world enchantments in disguise.

 

[sigh]

Demonic Embrace is my top aura choice rn (besides Rancor of course)

Here's a fun one that can hit like a tank

Build your own baneslayer!

 

[blacksmithy]

i am currently on 3 auras…

Spoiler

i have tried auras in the past and they’re just extremely hard to balance at any power level IMO. either you snowball too hard because removal sucks or you trap the aura player because removal doesn’t suck. i guess the one place where creature auras are kinda cool is in Historic, so maybe there’s some lessons in that format to be ported over to a “Historic cube?”

 

[Zoss]

@blacksmithy I agree that those are definitely the best kind of auras to play, lol, and as a matter of fact I run a lot of similar not-auras that are flavored as auras such as Wolfwillow Haven and Wild Growth. But I think there's a middle ground to be found in which auras can be strong without being completely polarizing. So far my sense is that they have to either be resilient against removal in some way such that the success case of "winning the game" and their failure case of "instantly getting 2-for-1'd" aren't the only two options available or they have to be resource-neutral in some way, such as the Runes or Bear Umbra. Or they have to be small enough (like Fly) such that the opponent actually both doesn't want to waste a removal spell and doesn't want to let the creature live.

These things can all be mitigated by designing the cube with these restrictions in mind, of course, by doing such things as limiting instant-speed creature removal and juicing the number of recursive creatures, but to be that's way too big of a change to make for this payoff.

 

[blacksmithy]

the problem i’ve found with them is that even the little 1 mana ones like rancor and curious obsession create a situation similar to the Annihilator triggers on Eldrazi: if you can’t remove the Eldrazi immediately, even if the trigger/extra damage from the aura doesn’t immediately win the game, it hurts like hell and is kind of demoralizing.
and the flip side of having the removal right away is that the player who put the Eldrazi/aura in their deck feels like a dum dum for thinking such a card would be a good include. i just have never experienced “good play patterns” with Auras outside of the Historic constructed format, and even there… it’s debatable.

perhaps one angle would be to put very weak auras on very weak, but well-protected creatures? this requires a pretty special environment but it could result in decent stuff

 

[sigh]

I don't think it's quite a polarized as the eldrazi. Sticking a rancor makes the creature have more punch, but it's not making you sacrifice half your board lol.

This is basically why I like demonic embrace so much. It's effect is powerful, but not more powerful than one can get from just big, powerful creatures in a format, and it has the safety valve/self-mill upside of being directly castable from the grave. I think it's the most "consistently pretty nice" aura we've gotten.

In general equipment are the "fixed" auras, and now that we are getting more colored equipment they can be slotted in to match more specific themes, rather than just taking a pile of colorless slots.

 

[blacksmithy]

okay gonna dial back on the doomsaying here, assuming your environment is tuned to support auras, there are some that i like, and you may notice a common theme:
Gryffs Boon
Sentinels Eyes
Rancor
Demonic Embrace

Eyes and Rancor in particular are helpful for doing something that i like doing:

 

[inscho]

Demonic Embrace is my current favorite. Being able to mill into it and something like a Bloodghast is a fun method of producing a threat.

I really like this at lower power levels:



I prefer it to Elephant Guide

 

[Rusje]

I have a urza block cube so I can chime in when auras are strong enough but not overpowering.
How does it work you ask?
1) In ye olde days creatures were weak compared to everything including auras, e.g. compare any 4 drop green creature (Emperor Crocodile or Citanul Centaurs) with Gaea's Embrace.
2) There is not much removal, and certainly not much instant speed removal. There is enough that you can destroy a few creatures but you have to choose which ones. The beauty is that sometimes in this cube you have to "waste" removal to survive.
These two points together make it such that if the auras are strong enough to make a meagre 1/1 a menace, then you would not mind if it gets destroyed. They wasted there precious removal on a creature which had its use already.

 

[japahn]

What actual auras are you running in your Urza's Block cube, @Rusje?

 

[Rusje]

What actual auras are you running in your Urza's Block cube, @Rusje?

http://cubecobra.com/cube/list/16se?f=type:Aura
To summarize: all embraces 2x, 2x rancor, pacifism like effects, steal and a few others. Around 5% of the cube are auras you want to put under your own creatures.

 

[sigh]

Can't believe I didn't remember to mention these earlier, but this mechanic is another great "fixed" aura:

An aura with both a separate creature mode, and a failsafe in the case that the attached-to creature is blown up in response or later (the bestow creature drops off in creature mode)

 

[ravnic]

I really like this cycle which I am running in my ravnica cube.



Fetter's is kind of an outlier as it's the only negative aura (you could count Knightly Valor from Ravnica 2 as the spiritual compleation).

But the other's are interesting, even when they might be too low powered for most cubes. They are really good enough (in their format) to be worth the risk of getting last gasped to blow out hell because they just pack enough value and actually do improve your creature. But since most of their value comes from their EtB, they will never create an unbeatable Baneslayer.

I think the cartouches from amonkhet work similarly and their are other card like them. I've had fun with this in limited:

 

[LadyMapi]

It's a new-ish card, and I haven't actually tested it in cube, but...

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I'm only running



Which are all basically removal. There's probably more playspace with aura's but you need to manage your cheap instant speed removal. Keep threatening to build a cube around

 

[japahn]

They are really good enough (in their format) to be worth the risk of getting last gasped to blow out hell because they just pack enough value and actually do improve your creature. But since most of their value comes from their EtB, they will never create an unbeatable Baneslayer.

It was common to cast those on the opponent's creatures when they had removal open especially Galvanic Arc, killing the creature it enchanted.

Looking at what was mentioned so far, seems like auras that mitigate card disadvantage are the way to go?

 

[Sheltem]

Hi! A newbie here.
I want to try out this one in my cube:

It practically turns every creature into a morphling, can defend the creature from spot removal for one blue and has good synergy with creatures which can tap for an effect.

 

[ravnic]

It seems like you've come to the perfectly right place.

 

[Sheltem]

Thank you for the kind welcome!
Another card came to mind. During my time of Invasion block limited I had lots of success with Armadillo Cloak
Not only can it buff your creature with trample and lifelink. But if push comes to shove you can put it down onto an opponent's creature. The lifelink will practically negate that attacker. Of course your opponent has a strong wall now, but it is a nifty play you can make. I'll add it to my pile.

 

[Chriskool]

[...] But I think there's a middle ground to be found in which auras can be strong without being completely polarizing. So far my sense is that they have to either be resilient against removal in some way such that the success case of "winning the game" and their failure case of "instantly getting 2-for-1'd" aren't the only two options available or they have to be resource-neutral in some way, such as the Runes or Bear Umbra. Or they have to be small enough (like Fly) such that the opponent actually both doesn't want to waste a removal spell and doesn't want to let the creature live.

These things can all be mitigated by designing the cube with these restrictions in mind, of course, by doing such things as limiting instant-speed creature removal and juicing the number of recursive creatures, but to be that's way too big of a change to make for this payoff.

I've enjoyed this sort of environment (and maintain a few)! The "removal" really defines how effective the auras can be. I got stomped by a Commanding Presence on a 2/2 this past weekend (due to having only a few answers - mostly Pacifisms that could be countered over time - and nothing at instant speed)!

 

[ravnic]

I think if I would try to make auras a bigger part of a cube, I'd keep 95% of the removal at sorcery speed, so the aura players don't get screwed for trying to play auras and will at least get one hit through most of the time. But I would also make sure that there is a decent amount of (sorcery speed) removal with good efficiency, so you could do something against the beefy baneslayers your opponent is building up.



The biggest downside of this would probably be, that it weakens blue based control strategies, where you ideally always want to hold your instant speed answers and then cast something like a draw spell if the opponent doesn't do anything meaningful.

 

[sigh]

I think if I would try to make auras a bigger part of a cube, I'd keep 95% of the removal at sorcery speed, so the aura players don't get screwed for trying to play auras and will at least get one hit through most of the time. But I would also make sure that there is a decent amount of (sorcery speed) removal with good efficiency, so you could do something against the beefy baneslayers your opponent is building up.

This is a key concept for getting auras to work at scale. The classic Lightning Strike vs. Volcanic Hammer discourse. This is a really solid option for red in such a setting:

 

[Rusje]

Instant speed removal is not the problem for auras. Too cheap instant removal is. Make cheap removal sorcery, but allow also some counterplay in the form of enchantment removal or not so cheap instant removal.

 

[sigh]

Instant speed removal is not the problem for auras. Too cheap instant removal is. Make cheap removal sorcery, but allow also some counterplay in the form of enchantment removal or not so cheap instant removal.

What sort of instant speed removal do you think is the right level? Something like commit // memory?

 

[MilesOfficial]

The four-mana instant-speed removal spells seem pretty fair in most contexts -- if someone is keeping up 4 mana and you get blown out trying to cast an aura, I mean...they took off a turn with 4+ mana up for what was probably be a 1-for-1 in most other circumstances. Stuff like: