General Color Pair Draft Archetypes

ravnic

ravnic

I was never a huge fan of the coor pair draft archetype way of building a cube, because I always felt, it would easily lead to railway drafting and too clearly defined archetypes and therefore to too similar decks. But I have to admit, that I was wrong, partly at least. I support around 12 different archetypes in my cube, and for 6, the core is pretty clearly in a color pair. The following Guilds clearly dominate an archetype:

{W/U} Blink
{B/R} Sacrifice (maybe a little support in green)
{G/W} Tokens (pretty strong support in red)
{B/G} Dredge (decent support in blue)
{U/R} Spells matter
{R/W} Aggro (with currently secondary support in black and green)

(Also, we're supporting Ramp in Green, Wildfire in Red and artifacts in every color except green, could also exclude black from artifacts maybe)

Now we (I'm managing this cube with my best friend) realized, that these 6 color pairs are getting drafted far more often, than the other 4, and we came to the conclusion, that this is becuase of the lack of a strong, common theme. So ...

{U/B}
I would like to have Dimir be the main control guild, with still incidental support in the other colors. Not quite sure how to empathise this in black besides removal, tbh. Discard? Draw? Fatties?

{R/G}
I have absolutely no idea. Trying to make it the Ramp pair doesn't convince me. Somethoing aggressive maybe? I need help. Desperately.

{W/B}
Lifegain maybe? How narrow would this be? I'm not a fan of human tribal for different reasons and beyond that, I have no ideas.

{G/U}
How narrow is a +1/+1 counter theme in these colors? Is there anything, blue and green are sharing? Could morph be an archetype (think Deathmist Raptor)? Or madness, which would have nice overlap with greens dredge cards and blues looters?


Maybe this thread could become even a nice little collection of 2-color draft archetypes as an inspiration for others :)
 
Rowan_CB

Rowan_CB

I really enjoy running a Saboteurs theme in UG. Some for consideration:



Bleeds well into UB as well if you're looking to add more depth.

For the truly bold cube designer, I've also noticed there is potential for a weird snake-saboteur tribal:




I've even considered running Cephalid Constable just so this package can exist:

 
ravnic

ravnic

@Japahn: How do you support Wildfire.dec in green besides the 4 or 5 good "enrage" cards?
I also run Devastation as a wildfire variant, making them worse, sadly.

To Simic: Okay, that snake saboteur tribal is incredibly cool. I'm not a huge fan of {G/U}-Saboteurs, but that is neat. I also really like the flash theme. I went through cardsearch all the flash dudes and it looks like it has lots of absolutely not narrow support cards. It's one of my 2 favorites things for simic right now, but I also looked up, how viable madness could be.

Here is what I came up with:





Does this look viable to anyone?
 
Rowan_CB

Rowan_CB

I think the problem with UG Madness is that the cards that actually have madness are generally pretty weak. The best payoffs in the batches of cards you've provided are cards that are good in your graveyard, and those are easier to enable in a UG self-mill shell.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Hmm, that's true. It would probably have too much overlap with Golgaris dredge theme and just end up as a splash to that deck.

My question to the flash archetype is, are there any payoffs beyond being able to wait until EOT? Like, any cards that become better, when most of your deck is instant speed?

Also, I figured I could try Lifegain for {W/B}. Does someone run a deck like this?
But I still have no clue for {R/G}, that one kills me.
 
inscho

inscho

ravnic said:
@Japahn: How do you support Wildfire.dec in green besides the 4 or 5 good "enrage" cards?
I also run Devastation as a wildfire variant, making them worse, sadly.

To Simic: Okay, that snake saboteur tribal is incredibly cool. I'm not a huge fan of {G/U}-Saboteurs, but that is neat. I also really like the flash theme. I went through cardsearch all the flash dudes and it looks like it has lots of absolutely not narrow support cards. It's one of my 2 favorites things for simic right now, but I also looked up, how viable madness could be.

Here is what I came up with:





Does this look viable to anyone?
Click to expand...


I support madness, and it's very good. Some important cards that can give it depth/explosiveness that you haven't listed:



Pivot into red:


EDIT:Which pivots into black:
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

Can i be difficult about language please?

One thing I found when I was building my cube built around the graveyard was to break down what the themes were trying to do, with as much clarity as possible. It took me a while to work out why some of the themes were confusing and muddled and I couldnt work out what they were trying to achieve. Because its easy to label themes as 'graveyard' or 'madness' and you're not clear about what you're trying to achieve.

So madness is a component of discard matters, which feeds into different graveyard themes. Sorry, it might seem pedantic but I think it's important to be clear when you're trying to define what your themes are trying to achieve.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Okay, what Insco suggested goes much further than actual Madness, but he also made some spot on suggestions, like Hollow One, Curator, Frantic Search and Chart a Course. They would for sure be a great Addition if someone wants to make their Simic theme Madness :)

But on topic, what are you guys supporting in Gruul and Orzhov?
 
Karn Cuberated

Karn Cuberated

How do {G/W} tokens go in your cube? I Glimpsed your list, and, AFAIU, they're closer to Midrange? I saw GW tokens in Modern. They play a dork on turn 1, and next turn they start casting their Spectral Processions and other token generators and pump the crowd up with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar. What I'd like to do is to shift this towards Midrange. Probably, I could add Geist-Honored Monk, but that won't be enough, I think.
Although, this deck might be quite opressive in Aggro matchups. Does anybody have other ideas for {G/W} Midrange?:(
 
Peter LaCara

Peter LaCara

My current favorite Gruul archetype is chucking lands at your opponent's face.



Although really, most of the green decks in my cube happen to be 3+ colors. That way you can play stuff like the Gitrog Monster and Muldrotha to get even more value out of lands in your graveyard.
 
ravnic

ravnic

I thought about something sweet with lands. Do you think, a similar theme would be viable at a lower power level and budget also? Even if I'd be willing to spent all that cash on crucible and Loam, I don't think they would be adequat for my meta for example.

Oops, didn't see japahns post. Nice deck, though my attempt at wildfire usually looks so different, so the creatures and ramp work with Devastation too.
 
ravnic

ravnic

For Orzhov, I'm definitely going to try out a Lifegain theme. I imagine something like this.

First, have a lot of Lifegain effects, repeatedly if possible:




Then have some juicy cards, that trigger on lifegain, I'm thinking about these currently:




Third, to have more payoff without adding too many narrow cards, add some cards that require life as a payment. I don't want to combo off with this archetype and reach 100 life for soe strange alternate wincon, also no cards that ask for a certain life total. These strong, mostly black cards, can easily be played in multiples and activated muc more recklessly with a certain amount of (mostly white) life gain in your deck:



Now I just have to figure out, which of these cards are the right ones for my cube :D

Doese someone run a similar archetype? Is there anything awesome I'm missing?

PS. One card was invisible because I wrote Bath of Bravery. I think that's pretty funny.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Both far too powerful for my Cube, that's for sure


Peter LaCara said:
Of course, a new Ravnica set is going to come out in a month and upend this entire discussion.
Click to expand...

Gruul never really gets a focused theme sadly, and Simic is a pretty narrow +1/+1 counters thing, which adapts badly to cubes blue sections. So, I'm not too hopeful :D
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

I'm assuming we're talking about the CCC? Anyway, here's what I think you should do.

First, I'll address the life gain deck for Orzhov. I think you have a decent list of cards, but I would narrow it down to the following:

Your list missed the following cards that I would consider for a theme like this as well:


You could also try:


Next is U/G. Instead of trying to support some sort of weird (albeit fairly cool) saboteurs theme, you've actually already got the trappings of a nice super-ramp deck in your list. In my cube, creatures that can untap permanents are used in conjunction with mana auras to create a powerful ramp shell. I run the following:

These cards would be added in addition to some regular ramp dudes, like Llanowar Elves and Sylvan Caryatid. Since your cube is 450 cards, you may want to double up on some of the untappers or land auras. You could also add some of these cards I missed in my list:

If you wanted to get really weird,

For payoffs, I would recommend running big creatures (á la Terastodon), mana sinks, and X-cost spells. Here's three of the cards I like:


Next is U/B. I really like the Cycling deck in this slot. More accurately, I like Drake Haven decks. The nice thing about cycling as an archetype is that the cycling and discard-matters cards don't really take up too much space. A Merfolk Looter generates more than enough value as it is without needing to have some sort of discard-matters payoff. If you want to support this archetype, I like the following:


Due to the nature of cycling, this deck is easy to bleed into other colors. I'm not going to list all of the cards here since honestly there are a lot of different directions you can go with it and there are a surprising number of GRW enablers which you could play. The nice thing about U/B cycling in particular is that it plays like a regular control deck with the addition of more flexibility and value.

Last but not least, R/G. Honestly, I think you should let your other design choices dictate what this archetype is. If you decide to go with a U/B Cycling deck, then I think you should listen to Peter and do this:
Peter LaCara said:
My current favorite Gruul archetype is chucking lands at your opponent's face.



Although really, most of the green decks in my cube happen to be 3+ colors. That way you can play stuff like the Gitrog Monster and Muldrotha to get even more value out of lands in your graveyard.
Click to expand...

If you don't, then Enrage Wildfire is also a cool archetype. My R/G section is just beatdown/ramp with a Dinosaurs subtheme.

Hope this helps!
-TrainmasterGT
 
ravnic

ravnic

Wow, thank you for all this input :)

The Orzhov cases you listed look sweet. I will consider them when I'll flesh out the archetype! Have you tried a similar theme in your cube before?

To Simic: I thought about ramp in this color pair as well, but I always figured, that it is actually just a green theme. Sure blue has some nice cards and can conttibute to some degree, but there will also always be nice additions in the other colors too, so blue would at best be a more common splash into a mono green ramp strategy. The Saboteurs deck is something, where both colors could contribute to somewhat equally, and I also have quite a few cards for it:)

Finally, for Gruul, I think you're right. I have already quite a few nice cards for the Enrage deck, so I wanna try go get something like this working.


Isn't cube an awesome thing? Managing one is the only way to get more than building decks and playing them out of this game. We can endlessly ponder around with archetypes and ideas and how to realize them and obviously talk about and share them.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Because this one hasn't been metioned so far and it might be interestin for someone, I want to share the {G}{U} archetype, I went with now. It's lands matter.



It bleeds nicely into other strategies like Ramp, Dredge or Wildfire and profites nicely from genereally useful effects like looting or land based ramp effects.
 
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