I would also consider, as long as you're breaking multiples and doubling fetches, to go with more Brainstorms and fewer (possibly none) Preordains / Ponders.
CML's Cube (405, polychromatic)
- Thread starter CML
- Start date
CML
Contributor
god i wish battle screech were a real thing. the card is just too bad to fit, though.
james, if you look at delver lists in legacy, modern, and SOM/ISD standard the deck composition of many delvers + many cantrips + many counters + 0-4 geist of st. traft just isn't something that's easy to 'draft' in cube. it's the same problem as storm or combo elves or whatever, though to a lesser extent. by contrast "naya midrange with guys and walkers" is not too tough, nor even "naya pod" and "sam black zombies," and an added difficulty is that type of deck tends to slaughter delver-style decks.
chris, last season there was a "bant delver" list that played stuff like selesnya charm and call of the conclave, and two seasons ago there was lingering souls + delver, which though it wasn't played at all after that PT did seem reasonable as souls is very good against delver's bad matchups and passable if bad against its good ones. the bant delver list on the other hand was horrible. what i'm really saying is: help me find more token stuff in U that's of the appropriate power level.
wadds, i'm not sure there are enough shuffles for that but will try it out. if anything brainstorm is more fun to cast.
one of the issues i've had with multiple cantrips is that, though they're lots of fun in a tense legacy event, in cube they pressure the caster and bore the opponent. we might have too many for an environment of drunkards, if highly skilled drunkards.
james, if you look at delver lists in legacy, modern, and SOM/ISD standard the deck composition of many delvers + many cantrips + many counters + 0-4 geist of st. traft just isn't something that's easy to 'draft' in cube. it's the same problem as storm or combo elves or whatever, though to a lesser extent. by contrast "naya midrange with guys and walkers" is not too tough, nor even "naya pod" and "sam black zombies," and an added difficulty is that type of deck tends to slaughter delver-style decks.
chris, last season there was a "bant delver" list that played stuff like selesnya charm and call of the conclave, and two seasons ago there was lingering souls + delver, which though it wasn't played at all after that PT did seem reasonable as souls is very good against delver's bad matchups and passable if bad against its good ones. the bant delver list on the other hand was horrible. what i'm really saying is: help me find more token stuff in U that's of the appropriate power level.
wadds, i'm not sure there are enough shuffles for that but will try it out. if anything brainstorm is more fun to cast.
one of the issues i've had with multiple cantrips is that, though they're lots of fun in a tense legacy event, in cube they pressure the caster and bore the opponent. we might have too many for an environment of drunkards, if highly skilled drunkards.
Primer: calibrating your cube to the BAC of your drafters
CML
Contributor
happy veteran's day to y'all, you guys. here's to wasting vast sums of money on magic cards and not war.
recovering here from a traumatic ptq weekend in which i drove to spokane, saw 4 (arguably 3) of our guys top 8, me get very drunk after 0-2 drop, then our main avatar croaking in the finals, i am killing time brainstorming black devotion. erebos is obviously terrible but gray merchant of asphodel is not. help me brainstorm some b devotion ideas? this could be a fun direction to take black in instead of or in addition to {zombies reanimator control}
gray merchant of asphodel
nether shadow
avatar of discord / ashenmoor gouger
recovering here from a traumatic ptq weekend in which i drove to spokane, saw 4 (arguably 3) of our guys top 8, me get very drunk after 0-2 drop, then our main avatar croaking in the finals, i am killing time brainstorming black devotion. erebos is obviously terrible but gray merchant of asphodel is not. help me brainstorm some b devotion ideas? this could be a fun direction to take black in instead of or in addition to {zombies reanimator control}
gray merchant of asphodel
nether shadow
avatar of discord / ashenmoor gouger
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I've found Mogis' Marauder to be quite solid. Are you running Messenger?
Augury Adept seems like a decent one for devotion
Somebody who has actually played Theros, does Devotion play well as a mechanic? Does it lend to interesting decisions?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Black devotion things:
1 Bloodghast
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Ashenmoor Gouger
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Necropotence
1 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Attrition
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Nighthowler
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Grave Pact
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Nether Traitor
SB: 1 Akuta, Born of Ash
SB: 1 Balthor the Defiled
SB: 1 Abyssal Persecutor
SB: 1 Entomber Exarch
SB: 1 Graveborn Muse
SB: 1 Faceless Butcher
SB: 1 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
SB: 1 Necrotic Ooze
SB: 1 Nekrataal
SB: 1 Undead Warchief
SB: 1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
SB: 1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
SB: 1 Nightveil Specter
SB: 1 Kalastria Highborn
SB: 1 Dark Prophecy
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Ashenmoor Gouger
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Necropotence
1 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Attrition
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Nighthowler
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Grave Pact
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Nether Traitor
SB: 1 Akuta, Born of Ash
SB: 1 Balthor the Defiled
SB: 1 Abyssal Persecutor
SB: 1 Entomber Exarch
SB: 1 Graveborn Muse
SB: 1 Faceless Butcher
SB: 1 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
SB: 1 Necrotic Ooze
SB: 1 Nekrataal
SB: 1 Undead Warchief
SB: 1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
SB: 1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
SB: 1 Nightveil Specter
SB: 1 Kalastria Highborn
SB: 1 Dark Prophecy
1 NEFARIOUS LICH
CML
Contributor
yeah, devotion is fun, it requires careful planning multiple turns ahead and is a source for great psychological complexity, which unfortunately caused the designers to clamp down on removal because "we can't do that, dude, that fucks up our plan." devotion also plays well with the best set ever printed, Eventide
at this point the challenge for cube design isn't so much "which cards generate devotion and fit well" for non-U colors as there are plenty, (for black especially), but "which cards with devotion in the rules text do we shove in there without either compromising variety or half-assing support." Thassa is a ridiculous bomb when turned on but not totally worthless if not, plus she helps turn herself on (yadda yadda sea goddess wank jokes), Purphoros and Fanatic are also strong cards that help skew you a certain direction, Nylea is kinda like that too, but then Black has the problem of "what do we do after Gray Merchant"? A second Merch? Terrible Erebos? Hokey Mogis's Marauder? Help me out here
edit: if any of you love Master of Waves and hate pro-red as much as I do, friend's suggested errata is "prevent all noncombat dmg"
at this point the challenge for cube design isn't so much "which cards generate devotion and fit well" for non-U colors as there are plenty, (for black especially), but "which cards with devotion in the rules text do we shove in there without either compromising variety or half-assing support." Thassa is a ridiculous bomb when turned on but not totally worthless if not, plus she helps turn herself on (yadda yadda sea goddess wank jokes), Purphoros and Fanatic are also strong cards that help skew you a certain direction, Nylea is kinda like that too, but then Black has the problem of "what do we do after Gray Merchant"? A second Merch? Terrible Erebos? Hokey Mogis's Marauder? Help me out here
edit: if any of you love Master of Waves and hate pro-red as much as I do, friend's suggested errata is "prevent all noncombat dmg"
I think perhaps a larger question is how do you properly balance the tension between promoting monocolored stuff and multicolored decks. What gradients exist between the two? I always considered the existence of the "monored" archetype to be one of the failings of the MTGO cube, and have harped about how that affects interactive drafting dynamics in the past.
CML may be right here, and there are parallels elsewhere. If some mechanical space is filled with cards that are "generally sucky, but great in the right context", you're probably going to end up with a parasitic design space. By contrast, "good card, bonkers in the right context" promotes layered drafting dynamics, competing demand for cards and those other good properties. Maybe this is just a cousin of the Poison Principle.
CML may be right here, and there are parallels elsewhere. If some mechanical space is filled with cards that are "generally sucky, but great in the right context", you're probably going to end up with a parasitic design space. By contrast, "good card, bonkers in the right context" promotes layered drafting dynamics, competing demand for cards and those other good properties. Maybe this is just a cousin of the Poison Principle.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Hybrid is the most obvious (and perhaps only) way of pushing both at the same time (at least with regard to effects that care about multicoloured things, of which there aren't really that many even in Alara Reborn, not so much the manabase commitments of those decks). It also permits a great quantity of strong multicoloured cards, as drafters will have more playables by default; if you can add incentives to play 3+ colours that rival Master of Waves or Gray Merchant, a natural balance should occur.
Erebos is more than fine imo. I'd definitely recommend adding a second Merchant, as you always want to draw it in those decks and they play off each other very well (in contrast to redundant copies of Gods or w/e)
Erebos is more than fine imo. I'd definitely recommend adding a second Merchant, as you always want to draw it in those decks and they play off each other very well (in contrast to redundant copies of Gods or w/e)
CML
Contributor
Surprisingly the devotion support is proving to be very compatible with multi-colored decks. as you guys know i boast the largest gold and fixing sections of any cube ever and have enjoyed this as a means of averting color-screw, encouraging drafters to mix-and-match their colors and explore cross-color synergies alla constructed (we get a pretty even mix of 1-4 color decks with an emphasis on 2/3), rewarding good drafting by making a number of picks go to fixing, not ending up with gargantuan sideboards because of this, etc.
However, one thing that we were missing until now (for the most part) was the "splash." Simply put, the amount of work required to execute a splash divided by the utility of the splash was not nearly high enough; in order to play Flinthoof Boar in that RDW deck, for example, you'd have to take four GR lands, so there was a strong incentive to just stay in a single color or totally branch out into Gruul Zoo. with devotion and the black aggro section, though, I no longer feel this is the case; now players can enjoy an incentive to stay predominantly one color while also playing light amounts of 1-2 others. for an example I would cite my gravecrawler, lingering souls, sorin, assemble the legion, ashenmoor liege deck. just fucking awesome.
my beef with the Red Deck in the modo cube (as i've typed before) was that it was underpowered and had a joke of a curve but would often win due to opponents doing nothing before turn 4 and/or being color-screwed. Wadds, are you saying your beef is that it's a "distinct archetype" as opposed to just another stripe of aggro (or R/x aggro), because those kinds of decks aren't supported? a friend here has a power cube, he once said that he observed a strict distinction between "mono-red" and "boros" as archetypes, which seems like stinking thinking to me.
anyway, Dom is right that hybrid ties it all together.
OK, let's try the second Merch and an Erebos!
here's some other devotion ideas:
Strangleroot Geist
Cuombajj Witches
Knight of the White Orchid (nothing worth being devoted to for White yet, unless you count that guy who was 14% sub-saharan the other day)
here's some fun sac stuff:
Smokestack
Wood Elves
Fight Garruk
Academy Rector
Epochrasite
Mitotic Slime
Mindslicer
Body Snatcher
anyone have fun with these cards?
However, one thing that we were missing until now (for the most part) was the "splash." Simply put, the amount of work required to execute a splash divided by the utility of the splash was not nearly high enough; in order to play Flinthoof Boar in that RDW deck, for example, you'd have to take four GR lands, so there was a strong incentive to just stay in a single color or totally branch out into Gruul Zoo. with devotion and the black aggro section, though, I no longer feel this is the case; now players can enjoy an incentive to stay predominantly one color while also playing light amounts of 1-2 others. for an example I would cite my gravecrawler, lingering souls, sorin, assemble the legion, ashenmoor liege deck. just fucking awesome.
my beef with the Red Deck in the modo cube (as i've typed before) was that it was underpowered and had a joke of a curve but would often win due to opponents doing nothing before turn 4 and/or being color-screwed. Wadds, are you saying your beef is that it's a "distinct archetype" as opposed to just another stripe of aggro (or R/x aggro), because those kinds of decks aren't supported? a friend here has a power cube, he once said that he observed a strict distinction between "mono-red" and "boros" as archetypes, which seems like stinking thinking to me.
anyway, Dom is right that hybrid ties it all together.
OK, let's try the second Merch and an Erebos!
here's some other devotion ideas:
Strangleroot Geist
Cuombajj Witches
Knight of the White Orchid (nothing worth being devoted to for White yet, unless you count that guy who was 14% sub-saharan the other day)
here's some fun sac stuff:
Smokestack
Wood Elves
Fight Garruk
Academy Rector
Epochrasite
Mitotic Slime
Mindslicer
Body Snatcher
anyone have fun with these cards?
What I meant was that the fixing was so poor in the MODO cube that the risk/reward you normally face (consistency of monocolor versus added card quality of multicolor decks) was totally out of line and converged on the boundary of the decision space (almost always go mono-red). The problem you get there is that you eliminate the fluidity in your drafting. Poison Principle. If there were two drafters in monored you both had shit decks. If there was only one, your deck was likely awesome.
Compare this to the situation where multicolor aggro is viable. There, the intelligent drafter is rewarded for reading signals and reacting accordingly. If two of us go into red aggro, and one insists on being only mono red, I'm going to jump into a
deck while still sniping the best red cards. It's more difficult, because I have a wider decision tree and have to balance taking fixing versus spells, but should be more heavily rewarded. I elaborated on this in the article, but let's imagine a situation where we've created an environment where people had to draft monocolor decks. The dynamics would be utter shit. You'd likely have 2 drafters in their own colors, and 6 paired up in the other three colors. The variety of buildable decks would be stunted, and you'd expect the finalists to be the ones in their own colors more often than not. It has nothing to do with defining archetypes and everything to do with understanding draft dynamics.
I agree hybrids are good for Devotion, but perhaps what I was curious about is some sort of continuum idea. Like, I probably don't want them to push me into monocolor (usually), but incentivizing me to move more heavily into one of my 2 / 3 colors could be interesting. Like many mechanics, though, I wonder how many devotion cards you would need in your deck (and of what qualities) before it's better to pick up a power inferior card of your main color versus a more powerful off-color card. If the dynamic created is "move all-in on monocolor or ignore devotion cards and play 3-color", then I'm probably not interested.
CML
Contributor
Right, that and there were no other real 'aggro' cards (or at least not a critical mass thereof, Carnophage, rofl) in the other colors in the Modo Cube. So your deck was always just mono-Red. What would you do with the other 20 picks? Doesn't matter -- you're in mono-red.
In paragraphs two and three you describe with astonishing precision the experience of drafting triple Gatecrash.
Per your worries in the last (dire)graf devotion is super-healthy in this regard. It also behaves this way in Theros draft, which is encouraging as it behaves in a very linear and boring way in Theros standard. Devotion, monstrosity, and heroic are frankly all shit mechanics for constructed (heroic especially) and the more I play Theros limited the more I want to break my laptop. Good thing Modo committed suicide first!
General comment: Cube is a lot more fun with Black aggro, and if someone can make a Blue aggro thing work out (there is an old thread about this, isn't there?) PLEASE TELL ME IMMEDIATELY because Cube _should_ if the design cost is not too high have aggro spread across 5 colors. Maybe not like your Tribal Zoo deck but something as funny as "Dune-Brood Humans." (Edit: the old primer, by Kranny maybe, was no good for Blue aggro, maybe Devotion will give us something. Thassa is a disgustingly powerful card)
In paragraphs two and three you describe with astonishing precision the experience of drafting triple Gatecrash.
Per your worries in the last (dire)graf devotion is super-healthy in this regard. It also behaves this way in Theros draft, which is encouraging as it behaves in a very linear and boring way in Theros standard. Devotion, monstrosity, and heroic are frankly all shit mechanics for constructed (heroic especially) and the more I play Theros limited the more I want to break my laptop. Good thing Modo committed suicide first!
General comment: Cube is a lot more fun with Black aggro, and if someone can make a Blue aggro thing work out (there is an old thread about this, isn't there?) PLEASE TELL ME IMMEDIATELY because Cube _should_ if the design cost is not too high have aggro spread across 5 colors. Maybe not like your Tribal Zoo deck but something as funny as "Dune-Brood Humans." (Edit: the old primer, by Kranny maybe, was no good for Blue aggro, maybe Devotion will give us something. Thassa is a disgustingly powerful card)
Yeah, the old discussion was in the distinction between blue tempo and blue aggro. Show me a constructed blue deck you would consider to be aggro?
I've 3 - 0'd with many blueish attacking decks. Just jam 3-power fliers until your curve is complete.
I've 3 - 0'd with many blueish attacking decks. Just jam 3-power fliers until your curve is complete.
Blue attacking decks used to be the best decks in my cube, but I haven't seen one in a very long time. I don't know why. It should be working now, but, as I always lament, the cube is drafted pretty rarely. Anyway the deck was all about T1 Isamaru, T2 a counterspell or 2 drop or hwatever, then Man-O'-War and Venser and hopefully Armageddon. These decks were so awesome. I once flashed in venser to bounce an attacking Broodmate Dragon (the token was dead or something), then Remanded it in the second mainphase, then untapped and Armageddoned.
Guys, I'm a newcomer to Birthing Pod in cube. If two people try to draft podin the woods does anyone hear it? do both their decks suck?
Guys, I'm a newcomer to Birthing Pod in cube. If two people try to draft pod
The upside to pod is a) there are a half-dozen variants to it (at least) b) Pod decks aren't so far from "regular" decks, and it's easy to audible into something else.
CML
Contributor
aggro blue deck: um, well ... http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1117344 (merfolk is not "tempo" it is a critical mass deck that swarms the board with a bunch of 5/5's)
the Modern variant with no mana denial or counters is purer swarm aggro: http://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=192
since fish tribal is not possible in cube, standard U devotion might provide a better template, which is the direction in which I've been taking this thread: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptths13/Top_8_Decks
basically i think in Cube tempo decks are not possible to recreate, unless you're willing to make an enormous design concession to their uniqueness and run ~15 cantrips + ~4 delvers + maybe some nimble monguises. blue aggro on the other hand ... who knows. the difficulty is that devotion would make the deck mainly U but then you'd still have to have another color. UR and UB are easy enough to imagine as counter-burn and zombies, but what would UG and UW look like?
still, maybe the metaphorical Cloudfin is mightier than the metaphorical Delver
the Modern variant with no mana denial or counters is purer swarm aggro: http://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=192
since fish tribal is not possible in cube, standard U devotion might provide a better template, which is the direction in which I've been taking this thread: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptths13/Top_8_Decks
basically i think in Cube tempo decks are not possible to recreate, unless you're willing to make an enormous design concession to their uniqueness and run ~15 cantrips + ~4 delvers + maybe some nimble monguises. blue aggro on the other hand ... who knows. the difficulty is that devotion would make the deck mainly U but then you'd still have to have another color. UR and UB are easy enough to imagine as counter-burn and zombies, but what would UG and UW look like?
still, maybe the metaphorical Cloudfin is mightier than the metaphorical Delver
Chris Taylor
Contributor
My idea behind blue aggro was the idea of "advance your board while causing incidental setbacks on your opponent's side" with the aformentioned manowar, spellstutter sprite, memory lapse etc and ride a single strong creature (delver, cloudfin raptor) and the mediocre bodies which come with your disruption to victory.
Key Elements:
-Blue needs to be at least 50% creatures
-Add a lot more bounce and tempo counters (delay, withdraw) then you normally would
-Blue needs something to do on turn 1 that presents a clock.
Personally I think devotion is too high a variance mechanic for me to want to try building around it (Fanatic of Mogis is never hitting for like 5, he's hitting for 2 or 9) plus it forces you into playing quite a few otherwise narrow cards to get the ball rolling (Mediocre Draft Specter?)
I took out the blue tempo idea because for aggro decks to be good, they needed to play a low low curve. For tempo decks to be good, you need to prey upon people who have a high-ish curve, which just ends up being control decks who can just one and two for one you into oblivion. Maybe it'll be better now that I have less creatures?
Key Elements:
-Blue needs to be at least 50% creatures
-Add a lot more bounce and tempo counters (delay, withdraw) then you normally would
-Blue needs something to do on turn 1 that presents a clock.
Personally I think devotion is too high a variance mechanic for me to want to try building around it (Fanatic of Mogis is never hitting for like 5, he's hitting for 2 or 9) plus it forces you into playing quite a few otherwise narrow cards to get the ball rolling (Mediocre Draft Specter?)
I took out the blue tempo idea because for aggro decks to be good, they needed to play a low low curve. For tempo decks to be good, you need to prey upon people who have a high-ish curve, which just ends up being control decks who can just one and two for one you into oblivion. Maybe it'll be better now that I have less creatures?
CML
Contributor
"Blue needs to be at least 50% creatures"
this is interesting, what proportion of creatures (vs. all non-land cards) are y'all running? (count lingering souls but not bitterblossom, as i do, arbitrarily) -- i clock in at 215/382 = 56.3%, which is well over the norm. it's been steadily creeping up and is now at a historic high as i cut black spells for gravecrawlers and cantrips for cloudfins. as far as cube metrics go this isn't one of the critical ones (curve, fixing being most important) but it would bring me great joy to have a discussion about "how many creatures" as a design choice / its consequences.
re. devotion, a mono-blue aggro section does not interest me so much as a blue-based deck that has dudes and "tempo" in the scheme of screwing with their creatures (as the mana denial plan + taxing counters + 1-mana threats isn't realistic outside of legacy). delay and withdraw, as weak cards consciously inserted to support a tempo theme, are the kinds of additions i'm trying to avoid. stuff like vapor snag does interest me, ditto bident of thassa ('stick a fork in me') but, i am wondering if a delver theme can ever work without a hyperabundance of cantrips + a high proportion of delvers; delver is not exactly playable in modern, which has no cantrips, and in cube, even at that point, the delvers are nearing poison-principle territory.
cloudfin, on the other hand, is evolved by gravecrawlers number one and two.
this is interesting, what proportion of creatures (vs. all non-land cards) are y'all running? (count lingering souls but not bitterblossom, as i do, arbitrarily) -- i clock in at 215/382 = 56.3%, which is well over the norm. it's been steadily creeping up and is now at a historic high as i cut black spells for gravecrawlers and cantrips for cloudfins. as far as cube metrics go this isn't one of the critical ones (curve, fixing being most important) but it would bring me great joy to have a discussion about "how many creatures" as a design choice / its consequences.
re. devotion, a mono-blue aggro section does not interest me so much as a blue-based deck that has dudes and "tempo" in the scheme of screwing with their creatures (as the mana denial plan + taxing counters + 1-mana threats isn't realistic outside of legacy). delay and withdraw, as weak cards consciously inserted to support a tempo theme, are the kinds of additions i'm trying to avoid. stuff like vapor snag does interest me, ditto bident of thassa ('stick a fork in me') but, i am wondering if a delver theme can ever work without a hyperabundance of cantrips + a high proportion of delvers; delver is not exactly playable in modern, which has no cantrips, and in cube, even at that point, the delvers are nearing poison-principle territory.
cloudfin, on the other hand, is evolved by gravecrawlers number one and two.
I do find it strange that our experiences with Delver have been so disparate. Maybe that's related to your super high creature (read: non-spell) count. For reference my blue section is 40% creatures.