I almost got got by Providence during FNM. Played against Abzan Season's Past with the 2nd place Temur list from the PT. I Emrakul'd him, did some stuff, dropped him to 5, then somehow fucked up by not leaving up UU to Emerge out a Deep-Fiend. This was the first game in that round, and he digs and finds a way to deal with Emrakul, and then plays Providence(he had like a million lands at this point from Nissa's Renewal). It took like another ten minutes to close it out for me. I was so sad. But then G2 was like 8 minutes so it was fine.
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- Thread starter James Stevenson
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Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Wasn't sure where to post there, but here is LSV, yet again, in the vintage cube breaking down an archetype that we often have trouble designing around here: storm.
The games are great as well, but the draft itself is very helpful. He identities that storm as an archetype should be rooted in UB, with the ability to audible into reanimator, and the final deck is a great example of that principle in action. Brain freeze is a storm kill condition/self mill to turn on reanimation, and his two main reanimation targets (palinchron and griselbrand) also support the storm plan.
I often like to talk about archetype color pairs and sub decks within a color pair, and this is a great example of why and how you would do this as an organizing principle. Even though we have excellent fixing that enables free splashes, the core of the deck, and the archetype, is rooted in UB.
I also like how he identifies some of the janky storm cards (empty the warrens) that I get tired of seeing. Red, a lot of times, ends up being a red herring as far as providing storm kill conditions, with cards like young pyromancer and guttersnipe not being anywhere close to where you really want to be, as well as the aforementioned empty.
Also, the way that he mass generates mana in this cube operates on the same theory as the penny cube, rooted in urza's block untap mechanics, coupled with effects that double mana production. However, instead of using bouncelands built organically into the format, the vintage cube uses cards like high tide and heartbeat of spring.
This seems correct to me, with the primary difference between the power level of the supporting cards, and the configuration of the mana enchancers (lands vs. spells).
The games are great as well, but the draft itself is very helpful. He identities that storm as an archetype should be rooted in UB, with the ability to audible into reanimator, and the final deck is a great example of that principle in action. Brain freeze is a storm kill condition/self mill to turn on reanimation, and his two main reanimation targets (palinchron and griselbrand) also support the storm plan.
I often like to talk about archetype color pairs and sub decks within a color pair, and this is a great example of why and how you would do this as an organizing principle. Even though we have excellent fixing that enables free splashes, the core of the deck, and the archetype, is rooted in UB.
I also like how he identifies some of the janky storm cards (empty the warrens) that I get tired of seeing. Red, a lot of times, ends up being a red herring as far as providing storm kill conditions, with cards like young pyromancer and guttersnipe not being anywhere close to where you really want to be, as well as the aforementioned empty.
Also, the way that he mass generates mana in this cube operates on the same theory as the penny cube, rooted in urza's block untap mechanics, coupled with effects that double mana production. However, instead of using bouncelands built organically into the format, the vintage cube uses cards like high tide and heartbeat of spring.
This seems correct to me, with the primary difference between the power level of the supporting cards, and the configuration of the mana enchancers (lands vs. spells).
I watched all of these yesterday. Cool games, but (here comes Debbie Downer) I wonder how they looked from the other side.
It's a shame nobody's built a Legacy deck named "Akroma Therapy"
Dom Harvey
Contributor
be the change you want to see in the world!
Gatherer gets borked every time I try to use it. I'm convinced cubetutor is the best way to look up cards now.
Magiccards.info is actually the best once you learn their search syntax.
Agreed. Gatherer is so slow.
I want to reply on the subject of red for storm. I somewhat disagree... not so much in that red isn't the greatest support for a full combo win (I agree UB is a better base), but that you can't build a more aggressive "value" version of the deck and still do well. Empty the Warrens isn't bad at all. Sequence a few spells and you can easily get 6-8 goblins for 4 mana. That is a lot of value. Hell, power max lists were running that card until a few years ago with zero storm support.
Guttersnipe in a heavy spells list is a wrecking ball, but it doesn't work nearly as well in most modern creature heavy lists because you are always facing superior creatures making him useless for attacking most of the time. I've been playing around with some of these builds quite a bit in my retro list and I have a new found appreciation for Guttersnipe in particular. Coupled with burn and counters, you can do a great deal of damage with it. You can also switch from aggressive to control fairly easily in these builds too by where you point burn and how you use the few creatures you have. These decks are deviating from storm quite a bit at that point, but there's still overlap with the archetype. And throwing away cards like that feels a bit like tossing the baby out with the bathwater to me. The spells matter archetype is one of the best things to come out of modern magic IMO (speaking strictly from a cube perspective).
I guess my question is, does the storm deck need to win in one massive turn to be a successful storm deck? Or can it do a variety of things and maybe at the end win with a 4 storm count Tendrils of Agony? What's wrong with that? Isn't that more interactive anyway since a lot probably happened on both sides to make an 8 life drain lethal? Not even sure we fully disagree either. I think you are arguing this idea of overlapping mechanics, so I'm a bit surprised that the reanimator overlap seems good to you but the spells matter overlap seems bad (or am I misunderstanding?) If anything, the latter feels more natural to me since storm decks inevitably pack a billion spells (might as well have a dual purpose). Then again, I am not a good storm drafter so could be way off base here.
Can you potentially go off a couple turns in a row with tendrils? Or do you burn all your cards in a storm turn?
It depends a lot on the composition of your deck. I watched the matches posted above and that is sort of how one or two of them played out (regrowth type cards obviously help to reuse some of your key cards). Storm is so dependent on massive mana generation and draw spells though. Taking it infinite outside power lists is really hard to do.
The other thing about watching these types of cube games is how they often revolve around really absurd cards - even if the deck isn't about those cards. Like Ancestral Recall. If someone gets to play that more than once and they win, it's sort of like taking an AK-47 to a knife fight. Doesn't really matter how bad your aim is, it's probably going to work out for you in the end because drawing 6-9 cards for 2-3 mana is just retarded.
It was a well built deck and it was very well played though. Quite enjoyed watching that. But it was also an absurd pile of power cards that when played together have a tendency to win games.
It was sort of comical to watch that midrange deck even with silly stuff like Thragtusk be utterly ineffective against a deck like this, and it illustrates why there is such a divide in the cubing community on card evaluation. Thragtusk would utterly wreck my midrange cube to the point where I would never ever run it but it elicits a silent fist pump reaction from a typical powered combo deck. The only thing keeping broken decks like that in check are aggro decks. As demonstrated by the mono red deck that pretty much dismantled the storm deck (though props for winning one game).
The other thing about watching these types of cube games is how they often revolve around really absurd cards - even if the deck isn't about those cards. Like Ancestral Recall. If someone gets to play that more than once and they win, it's sort of like taking an AK-47 to a knife fight. Doesn't really matter how bad your aim is, it's probably going to work out for you in the end because drawing 6-9 cards for 2-3 mana is just retarded.
It was a well built deck and it was very well played though. Quite enjoyed watching that. But it was also an absurd pile of power cards that when played together have a tendency to win games.
It was sort of comical to watch that midrange deck even with silly stuff like Thragtusk be utterly ineffective against a deck like this, and it illustrates why there is such a divide in the cubing community on card evaluation. Thragtusk would utterly wreck my midrange cube to the point where I would never ever run it but it elicits a silent fist pump reaction from a typical powered combo deck. The only thing keeping broken decks like that in check are aggro decks. As demonstrated by the mono red deck that pretty much dismantled the storm deck (though props for winning one game).
BTP on Aug 24 said:
Does anyone have a link to Balduvian Trading Post? All my googling just leads me to the actual card, and I'd like to witness this madness for myself.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Maybe its just your browser? I was just there. :/
BROWSER? But I just met 'er!
I'd genuinely feel bad if you were not in on this joke, so I'm going to spoil it.
There is no such place. It's a fictitious forum where the posters are so out in left field, it makes Riptide look conservative. This is one of those inside jokes like Stormblood Berserker "pitches to force".
Man, I've made myself look like an idiot twice now in this thread. I'm gonna go home and have a good cry into my pillow now.
hahahaha I forgot about this. Who did it????
Don't be sad, be glad! You're now in on one of RiptideLab's dankest memes!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
A classic example of the winners writing the narrative. You can't casually erase BTP's rich history just because we conquered them and drove out the Balduvian hordes. I don't expect this kind of imperialist dogma on Riptide Lab.
Sadly, magiccards.info might be dead. Still no updates for Eldritch Moon and it still thinks Fate Reforged is in Standard. The rumor is that the owner stopped updating it when he sold mtgsalvation, which he also owned.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
That is sad news indeed, magiccards.info is by far the best card database there is, utterly superior to gatherer.
Edit: I just found this: https://magidex.com/. Haven't explored it yet, it's super new on the scene, but it says it's an enhanced magiccards.info clone.