General [CONTEST] Exploration Cube

[safra]

The central conceit of this cube is to take the Penny Pincher cube's bounceland-fueled storm engine, splicer midrange package, and land-based combo theme and raise the power level.

Spoiler: YMTC blurb

A Cube's metagame is heavily reliant on its mana fixing. I've taken the Ravnica bouncelands and designed a format around their plentiful availability, drawing from Pauper constructed and RDG limited but at a slightly higher power level. The heavily ETB-leaning manabase is inspired by KTK's design, which divided decks into aggressive two-colour builds and slower but stronger 3+ colour decks. of colours. Faster mana fixing is provided in one-shot form to reinforce this dichotomy.

In concert with the various untap effects in the cube, bouncelands allow for 'burst' mana ramp, big finishers, high-octane X spells, and enable a number of powerful combo strategies (including Storm). I'm also running two copies of one card per colour to add texture to the draft environment. These are unique in the Magic card pool, enable multiple archetypes, have gestalt synergy with themselves. They're not essential to build a deck in the colour, but they'll lead to powerful synergistic decks.

White cares the most about small creatures, Human tribal, and having multiple permanent types, with a Cataclysm subtheme to devastate anything slower than itself. White's duplicate is Thalia's Lieutenant, establishing it as the most aggressive colour and heaviest source of Human tribal.

Blue cares the most about burst mana and untapping lands. It's also the colour of card selection, reactive control, and uses looters to interact with the graveyard. Blue's duplicate is Frantic Search, which does all of this at once.

Black uses recursive creatures to fuel aggressive and sacrifice-themed decks, but it's also the colour of reanimation, discard, and sorcery-speed control. Black's duplicate is Bloodsoaked Champion, a Human beater that exhausts opposing removal and provides sacrifice fodder.

Red cares the most about wide battlefields, whether via token strategies or multiple cheap creatures. It also cares about noncreature spells, with Prowess and Welder subthemes. Red's duplicate is Young Pyromancer, connecting the tokens theme with spells-matter.

Green is the colour most concerned with ramp. Green has the quickest access to the beefiest creatures, but it's also concerned with graveyard recursion and snowballing value, so Green's duplicate is Eternal Witness. Witness also gives redundancy to the many buildarounds in the cube without needing to run multiple copies of much narrower cards.

The colourless section provides mana acceleration, fixing, and a small but relevant Eldrazi package which gives additional deckbuilding space to any colour combination, although the land subtheme in GW makes it a frequent home for Eldrazi decks. There are spellbombs, baubles, and powerful Eldrazi titans for the biggest (or cheatiest) decks in the format. The colourless duplicate is Thought-Knot Seer. The gold slots support the themes outlined in the monocoloured sections while also providing splashable value, powerful finishers, and a cycle of powerful and deck-defining three-colour cards.

Shard/wedge theatres: UBR cheatz, RUG storm, WUR artifacts/spells-matter, RBG sacrifice, BUG graveyard value, RGW ramp, WUB control, WUG large creatures/Eldrazi, WBG small creatures/Eldrazi, RBW sacrifice.

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/63360
http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/63360

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

ugh, have to make this choice.

p1p1 took icefall regent, thinking U/G tempo. Here is what I have to choose from.




kiki, snapcaster, time warp, frantic search, and preordain are all strong picks >.<

Probably going time warp because its most on plan, kiki's cost is a bit intimidating at this point in the draft, preordain is lower power than these options. Snap/time warp/and frantic search though are all so good though...also kind of want that bounce land to ramp with.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Drafted your cube. Took Path to exile P1P1 as a powerful, noncommittal removal spell. A few twists and turns later, and... this deck is super hot. There's lots of synergy to playing spellbomb and star early as sacrifice fodder for Braids, cabal minion, looping them indefinitely with auriok salvagers. Looping the spellbomb and chromatic star with the salvagers themselves is obvious value, but there's also value with that and the grind that trading post gives you. Ugh. There are so many cool combos in this deck, I'm just disappointed that I can't play it! Not sure how powerful your cube is, but this deck is sweet AF. Wish I'd drafted 1-2 more spellbombs tho.

List of Synergies:

Auriok Salvagers + spellbomb/chromatic star
Auriok Salvagers+ Trading Post
Auriok Salvagers + star/spellbomb + Braids, Cabal Minion
drownyard temple + Braids, Cabal minion
Asylum visitor + Trading Post

Have you considered reassembling skeleton for the cube? It's a pretty good 'cog piece', and one that I felt was missing.

slovakattack's draft of Exploratory Sketch on 05/09/2016 from CubeTutor.com

 

[GiftsForgiven]

ugh, have to make this choice.

p1p1 took icefall regent, thinking U/G tempo. Here is what I have to choose from.




kiki, snapcaster, time warp, frantic search, and preordain are all strong picks >.<

Probably going time warp because its most on plan, kiki's cost is a bit intimidating at this point in the draft, preordain is lower power than these options. Snap/time warp/and frantic search though are all so good though...also kind of want that bounce land to ramp with.

I'd go preordain. Cantrips are king in cube, and it's noncommittal enough to slot into any blue deck you make. Time warp is nice, but not in every deck and Kiki is a bit too deep for a P1P2 that isn't on color, what with that triple casting cost. I'm looking at Preordain, Frantic Search and complicate as a P1P2 here. Hope that Snapcaster Mage/Time Warp wheel.

 

[Fulcrum]

ugh, have to make this choice.

p1p1 took icefall regent, thinking U/G tempo. Here is what I have to choose from.


kiki, snapcaster, time warp, frantic search, and preordain are all strong picks >.<

Probably going time warp because its most on plan, kiki's cost is a bit intimidating at this point in the draft, preordain is lower power than these options. Snap/time warp/and frantic search though are all so good though...also kind of want that bounce land to ramp with.

I really like taking Snapcaster Mage here. It feels like it gives you the options of going into U/x control or U/x tempo. After that I think I would take Frantic Search due to the density of bouncelands and then preordain after that since I like 1 cmc filter cards so much.

Looking at the list I feel like this cube really wants Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger. They seem really strong with things like Voyaging Satyr and Magus of the Candelabra.

Is Candelabra of Tawnos too strong of an effect as an artifact?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Time warp didn't really work out how I wanted :/ should have gone with the frantic search.

Just always ramp in blue: you can always go reanimator if it doesn't work out.

 

[safra]

I really like taking Snapcaster Mage here. It feels like it gives you the options of going into U/x control or U/x tempo. After that I think I would take Frantic Search due to the density of bouncelands and then preordain after that since I like 1 cmc filter cards so much.

Looking at the list I feel like this cube really wants Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger. They seem really strong with things like Voyaging Satyr and Magus of the Candelabra.

Is Candelabra of Tawnos too strong of an effect as an artifact?

Quirion Ranger's a great idea, going in ASAP.

Candelabra I think is a little too strong for the level of artifact/enchantment removal in the environment (which I'm still fine-tuning). That's why I'm running the Magus instead.

Have you considered reassembling skeleton for the cube? It's a pretty good 'cog piece', and one that I felt was missing.

Also in! Love the deck.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm thinking +




To give more density to those combos. I just like stroke of genius better than rev, because stroke is a win con. Careful study is nice as a way to cheaply dig while upping storm.

Bouncelands do feel a bit thin. If that density isn't upped maybe?:



It does feel like there is a power gap, and its difficult to escape that feeling of drafting around part of the cube. Blue seems really good, probably obnoxiously so (which is to be expected). As I feared, the splicer package really doesn't survive the job to 540. Neither did the package designed to disrupt bouncelands. I also couldn't really seem to get the eldrazi to work.

Bouncelands mean everyone canramp effectively, so cards like elesh norn will be hitting the battlefield, and don't really need to be cheated into play. Just something to consider for balancing down the line.

Crush of tentacles feels like a great inclusion.

All in all it worked much better than I thought for a first draft. The blue ramp effects feel good, and I probably wreaked the draft ai going down that lane.

I would cut imprisoned in the moon. Blue is already doing something obscene by gaining the ability to ramp: don't need to give them reasonable hard removal. Maybe Niblis of frost instead? Works well in the UG deck.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Quirion Ranger's a great idea, going in ASAP.

Candelabra I think is a little too strong for the level of artifact/enchantment removal in the environment (which I'm still fine-tuning). That's why I'm running the Magus instead.

Also in! Love the deck.

Uh, yeah. Considering it's a 1 mana artifact that creates infinite mana with any bounceland, I think it's safe to say Candelabra is way too strong.

EDIT -
Wait, I read the oracle text. You need to tap it for its ability. Derp. I still think it's way too strong.

 

[safra]

I'm thinking +




To give more density to those combos. I just like stroke of genius better than rev, because stroke is a win con. Careful study is nice as a way to cheaply dig while upping storm.

Bouncelands do feel a bit thin. If that density isn't upped maybe?:



Blue seems really good, probably obnoxiously so (which is to be expected). As I feared, the splicer package really doesn't survive the job to 540. Neither did the package designed to disrupt bouncelands. I also couldn't really seem to get the eldrazi to work.

Crush of tentacles feels like a great inclusion.

All in all it worked much better than I thought for a first draft. The blue ramp effects feel good, and I probably wreaked the draft ai going down that lane.

I would cut imprisoned in the moon. Blue is already doing something obscene by gaining the ability to ramp: don't need to give them reasonable hard removal. Maybe Niblis of frost instead? Works well in the UG deck.

Great points. I think the bouncelands are being picked pretty highly by most decks and so 30 may indeed not be enough. I'll try 40 I guess and see what that does - I think there's a soft limit to how many a midrange deck wants to play though before it gets too slow to curve out. I'll probably add Dictate if I can't find room for another ten bouncelands.

Blue definitely needs to be weakened, I agree. I'll cut Imprisoned - you're totally right about it not needing to get removal as well as everything else. I may also cut Treasure Cruise depending on how much graveyard velocity there ends up being (likely enough; cruise is bonkers).

Re: additions:
Displace is amazing - I had no idea that card existed since I never drafted EMN. I still don't have a blue double-up, though, and it might be prudent to go with two Flickers (or maybe two Frantic Searches?) for the additional enchantment/scryland synergies. Access to Flicker has been the biggest limiting factor on the combo ramp decks I've tried to draft so far so it feels like a good double (which would also ensure that at least one copy shows up per draft pod). I'd probably cut one of the blue card advantage spells for, like, Oath of Jace to bring it home.

Stroke for Rev is another easy swap, and Study is in line with what wants to be doing (and lets me find another value ard). Hunting Pack: yes. Yes, please. Top-end for the storm decks that doesn't fizzle if you can't perfectly storm them, and being an instant is lovely for the hypothetical Prophet of Kruphix storm deck. Splinter Twin I'm still not sure about, though. With only Kiki in the cube, Twin combo is an occasional event that's unlikely to show up in every pod. It doesn't hurt that of the 3 targets for Kiki, only Exarch isn't a strong card on its own, so it's less likely that the Kiki player will get to wheel Resto or Conscripts. Running Splinter Twin itself means I'm adding a more consistent environmental pressure to my environment (it becomes much more likely that someone will assemble Twin combo, forcing a greater need for cheap instant-speed interaction) and that I'd probably need to run Pestermite as well, diluting my targets and leading to them wheeling to the combo player more often. I'd prefer to keep this combo at just Kiki+3 targets for now and encourage players to take other, less reliable, combo lines.

Bouncelands mean everyone can ramp effectively, so cards like elesh norn will be hitting the battlefield, and don't really need to be cheated into play. Just something to consider for balancing down the line.

I'm watching the top-end, but I wanted to start out with something a little more exciting than Vizzerdrix. I'll look for a happy medium.

It does feel like there is a power gap, and its difficult to escape that feeling of drafting around part of the cube.

This is true and sad. I'm not sure what the weakest cards are - if everyone could chip in with what they think are a couple of easy cuts, that'd be lovely. I'm also worried about 2-drops that could potentially scare people away from a bounceland curve by being too assertive or strong.

As I feared, the splicer package really doesn't survive the job to 540. Neither did the package designed to disrupt bouncelands.

Good to know the weaker splicers aren't there. I tried to force golems and got a RW midrange pile that probably wanted Cataclysm to be really competitive.

Spoiler: RW golems

RW golems from CubeTutor.com

I cut a lot of the disruption package, including Flickerwisp, although there's still some land-D there. I'm open to adding more, but I think Petravark is too weak here.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

I really like taking Snapcaster Mage here. It feels like it gives you the options of going into U/x control or U/x tempo. After that I think I would take Frantic Search due to the density of bouncelands and then preordain after that since I like 1 cmc filter cards so much.

Looking at the list I feel like this cube really wants Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger. They seem really strong with things like Voyaging Satyr and Magus of the Candelabra.

Is Candelabra of Tawnos too strong of an effect as an artifact?

A small point: Unless the cube is -extremely- instant/sorcery heavy, Snappy isn't a very good P1/P1. He's upside is strong, but he does literal nothing without support. He's one of the most overvalued early picks I've seen.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Add:



Underrated bounce spell; helps storm out. I've tried to draft storm a few times, and haven't gotten a decent deck together yet.

Cut:



I do not understand why this card is in the cube. It does very little for it's setup cost, and I would expect this to be 15th pick much of the time.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

In general, I hate storm in cube. It's an incredibly parasitic archetype, requires a perfect draft and perfect games to go off, and fills the cube with unusable chaff if no-one is drafting it.

With that out of the way, I can see you do have an archetype there... but imo, you haven't supported it properly. Storm needs two fundamental things to go off: a mass-mana engine, and a draw engine. I do not feel you have either of those things in adequate amounts, as storm needs a TON of redundancy to be effective.

You do not have many rituals. This is fine, as you have kind of an interesting storm mana generation engine with bouncelands and amulet of vigor in this cube, but I'm not seeing summer bloom, azusa, lost but seeking, heartbeat of spring or explore, the cards that are really needed for that archetype to go off.

Nor do I see the massive draw spells needed for storm to refuel. You do have time spiral, but that is simply not enough. Memory jar, wheel of fortune, yawgmoth's bargain, and massive draws (net -gain- draws, not windfall wheels) are all absolutely necessary in order for storm to operate.

A player who drafts this archetype (and I've spent the last 20 minutes or so trying) will not be able to find enough mana generation or draw to make storm workable.

Edit: It's late, I don't mean to be overly harsh. Apologies if my words came out mean or biting. Didn't mean for them to. I hope this feedback helps; I'm liking the cube a lot.

 

[safra]

Add:



Underrated bounce spell; helps storm out. I've tried to draft storm a few times, and haven't gotten a decent deck together yet.

Cut:



I do not understand why this card is in the cube. It does very little for it's setup cost, and I would expect this to be 15th pick much of the time.

Snap is in, Toshi's out. He's a pet card I forgot to cut when I rejected the ritual package.

[Storm critique]

This is good, and appreciated, thanks! Don't sweat the tone. I've been worried about balancing draw-7s with the rest of the cube; they're quite powerful. Future Sight + Top may be excessively cute, but I liked the idea.

The chief storm engine is currently looped untap effects - assembling a series of cards and then going off during a combo turn is difficult but not impossible without major draw. Eternal Witness and Frantic Search, as 2-ofs, enable this strategy.

High Tide may be a trap - I tried to force a version of it that was more like a traditional storm deck, with Search, Turnabout, Spiral et al and it didn't feel good enough either.

Amulet storm I'm unsure about but will probably develop further. Summer Bloom is excessive, I think, but Explore & co will find a place. Lotus Cobra is another easy add.

Thank you all for your feedback, drafts, and kind words as I develop the list!

 

[GiftsForgiven]

High Tide may be a trap - I tried to force a version of it that was more like a traditional storm deck, with Search, Turnabout, Spiral et al and it didn't feel good enough either.

The problem with high tide is that it's a nobo with bouncelands, since they aren't actually islands. And since the storm deck wants to draft as many bouncelands as possible to combo with Drake/Palinchron... it's not great.

I think in general you're underestimating the sheer amount of redundancy that storm needs to be viable.

I think one of the main issues (at least, that i've seen drafting) is that black is a trap. With 'normal' storm, you want to be ritualing into a colorless draw engine like memory jar, or a black draw card like yawgmoth's bargain. It (and to a lesser degree, YawgWill) are not used effectively here, as your storm deck doesn't really want to 'wheel and deal,' more 'ramp into an infinite palinchron/peregrine drake,' a game plan that YawgWill does not support.

I think it would be worth looking at your storm deck less as traditional storm, and more as pure combo. Think of it as 'palinchron/drake combo' instead of storm, and you'll be able to shave a lot of the unnecessary pieces, and add in some necessary ones.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Isn't it also worth to decide what the platonic ideal of the deck is and try to work backwards from that? If you know what 23 spells to run, you can work out the amount of similarcards you need in the cube for at least one person getting their hands on those 8.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Isn't it also worth to decide what the platonic ideal of the deck is and try to work backwards from that? If you know what 23 spells to run, you can work out the amount of similarcards you need in the cube for at least one person getting their hands on those 8.

Oh, totally. In fact, storm is parasitic enough that it may be worth it to build your 'perfect' storm draft deck that you want players to find in your cube, and just jam it in there.

 

[Laz]

From a quick look over of the list, I was a little skeptical of aggressive strategies, as there is a lot of very cheap 2-for-1s available. Then I went and forced aggro, and ended up with this...

BW Aggro from CubeTutor.com

The deck is terrifying! It has so much disruption!

I will likely go back and have a play with Red aggro, to see what falls out. From the list, a couple of cards jump out as relics of a double strike theme, mostly Viashino Slaughtermaster.

You definitely seem to lose a bit by going to 540, and I miss the artifact sacrifice theme most of all. It probably takes too much twisting to try to get something going with say, KCI, Furnace Celebration, Atog and Clues, but I am sad regardless. The list still feels rough, but is at the same time, quite neat.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Tried my hand at Aggro this morning, came up with this:

slovakattack's U/R tempo aggro from CubeTutor.com

Seems nice and tempo-ey. The Matter Reshaper may be a bit deep, but he can always be pitched if we don't find our two colorless sources.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

In general, I hate storm in cube. It's an incredibly parasitic archetype, requires a perfect draft and perfect games to go off, and fills the cube with unusable chaff if no-one is drafting it.

With that out of the way, I can see you do have an archetype there... but imo, you haven't supported it properly. Storm needs two fundamental things to go off: a mass-mana engine, and a draw engine. I do not feel you have either of those things in adequate amounts, as storm needs a TON of redundancy to be effective.

You do not have many rituals. This is fine, as you have kind of an interesting storm mana generation engine with bouncelands and amulet of vigor in this cube, but I'm not seeing summer bloom, azusa, lost but seeking, heartbeat of spring or explore, the cards that are really needed for that archetype to go off.

Nor do I see the massive draw spells needed for storm to refuel. You do have time spiral, but that is simply not enough. Memory jar, wheel of fortune, yawgmoth's bargain, and massive draws (net -gain- draws, not windfall wheels) are all absolutely necessary in order for storm to operate.

A player who drafts this archetype (and I've spent the last 20 minutes or so trying) will not be able to find enough mana generation or draw to make storm workable.

Edit: It's late, I don't mean to be overly harsh. Apologies if my words came out mean or biting. Didn't mean for them to. I hope this feedback helps; I'm liking the cube a lot.

Storm here is going to work very differently. Its going to be a control-ramp deck, with a minimum of parasitic pieces, that occasionally gushes out mana that results in someone dying. It doesn't want narrow rituals because those are already built into the mana base, and its just a question of breaking them with untap effects. I would suggest double frantic search, as that does everything the deck wants: ramps while digging for more gas.

I would not take a vintage cube approach to storm design here. The operating point for these decks should be something like "EOT frantic search to ramp mana into a big stroke of genius." The debate should be what the ultimate organic kill pieces are that they can take advantage of if they wish.

The main issue here is that tendrils is narrow, and the graveyard interactions don't appear to be robust enough to justify brainfreeze in a control shell. That means either control gy interactions have to be intensified, or brainfreeze has to go, replaced by some other way to kill an opponent with 10-14 (or infinite) mana generation in a turn.

This is true and sad. I'm not sure what the weakest cards are - if everyone could chip in with what they think are a couple of easy cuts, that'd be lovely. I'm also worried about 2-drops that could potentially scare people away from a bounceland curve by being too assertive or strong.

The jump to 540 is really brutal, and you just start to run out of cards that resonate together at similar power levels very quickly in the densities you need.

I think if you look at the sort of B/W aggro deck that Laz drafted it tells the story: basically, there is a 360 card riptide value cube layered onto a bounceland cube. You might have 540 cards, some of which represent penny cube interactions, but the temptation is always going to be there to just ignore the artifact synergies or deck strategies that are no longer high powered within the context of the format, and just draft a normal riptide list.

For example, I can see what you're aiming to do with the splicers to make artifact interactions more of a centerpiece of the cube, but in the penny cube splicers are a premier deck with careful density selections, and top tier value cards regardless. Once they get past density issues, now they have to compete with much higher powered value pieces, which they may or may not do. If they can't carry that weight, than the entire artifact axis from the cube its modeling itself after ceases to function convincingly. You end up either having to look elsewhere, or removing that component.

Ultimately, I think you are probably better off just letting the source material go, and letting the format develop organically. For example, I really like the higher power untap effects here. In the normal riptide lists, I feel like control decks are going to struggle to develop true mana superiority, and here they can do that quite easily, which is an interesting spin on a tried and true format structure.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Storm here is going to work very differently. Its going to be a control-ramp deck, with a minimum of parasitic pieces, that occasionally gushes out mana that results in someone dying.

If this is the case, then I heartily recommend cutting Yawgmoth's will, Tendrils of Agony, Brain Freeze and Dark Ritual. These are trap cards.

Players are conditioned to think of a certain kind of storm deck when they see these cards, and they will take these early -expecting- to see rituals/wheels etc. You cannot change that expectation, and attempting to do so will result in disaster. My advice? Change up the win conditions for the storm deck. (as well as adding more land 'hyper-ramp' like heartbeat of spring etc.)

Off the top of my head, I would include these win conditions over Brain Freeze/Tendrils:



They encourage your players to think of your 'storm' deck as less of a traditional deck, and will be more organically chosen.

 

[Tzenmoroth]

I disagree with cutting Yawgmoth's Will. I run it in a cube that doesn't even support storm and people have loved it as a value regrowth late game play. I recently cast it to play Westvale Abbey and Bloodbraid Elf. The card is not a trap at all. I like the idea of cutting the literal storm cards though in favor of ways of winning with big mana.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

If this is the case, then I heartily recommend cutting Yawgmoth's will, Tendrils of Agony, Brain Freeze and Dark Ritual. These are trap cards.

Players are conditioned to think of a certain kind of storm deck when they see these cards, and they will take these early -expecting- to see rituals/wheels etc. You cannot change that expectation, and attempting to do so will result in disaster. My advice? Change up the win conditions for the storm deck. (as well as adding more land 'hyper-ramp' like heartbeat of spring etc.)

Off the top of my head, I would include these win conditions over Brain Freeze/Tendrils:



They encourage your players to think of your 'storm' deck as less of a traditional deck, and will be more organically chosen.

I agree. The below still feels rough, but is a bit closer.

U/W Combo Control from CubeTutor.com

Kind of a flyers tempo deck with some board clogging token makers to swing the race in your favor, attached to combo pieces.

Just want to note that to make this I had to first pick two of those bouncelands since the AI just hoovers them up, but they are that good.

The combo elements are there, but you can see are pretty roughly hewn. Palinchron very easily is an engine for infinite mana that can be dumped into mindshrieker for an instant kill. Command, spellskite, and misdirection provide some level of redundancy, while a longer game coupled with shifting tools allow the combo to eventually come together.

This seems like a very high power, effectively, two card combo, that puts a splinter twin level of pressure on its competition.

Than the other part of the combo package seems less clearly developed. White provides some really good passive storm wincons with myth realized and monestary mentor, but outside of being able to cast and recast attunement a couple of times, is probably going to burn out of cards in hand to cast long before effecting a kill. They feel more like slow value pieces.

This is where with traditional storm combo, we would want draw 7s. However, in this controlling big mana generation shells, (and especially with the Palinchron engine) the card we want here is going to be an X draw spell:




It should be noted, that three of those are instant kills in this framework (thus negating the need for spell generation kill, and making this more like prosp bloom), while rev requires a bit more work, having you draw your deck and than sequencing out enough spells to grow either prowess spell to lethal magnitude. A few take away points:

1. Yes, this is the level of spell based power we are toying with.
2. Any sort of X based spell is much better than it normally would be due to the high rates of mana generation. Fireball, for example, is both spot/mass removal for control and a win con.
3. This is an interesting balancing problem.

 

[safra]

Some selected decks from Cubetutor:

AGGRO:

Spoiler: Mono-red Kiki (Kirblinx)

The Best Mono Red Manabase (w/Combo!) from CubeTutor.com

Spoiler: RB aggro (safra)

RB aggro from CubeTutor.com

Spoiler: Sidisi aggro Spawning (Kirblinx)

GBu Aggro Spawning from CubeTutor.com

CONTROL:

Spoiler: Castle control (Miasmir)

('burg' means 'castle' in German)

4-color control from CubeTutor.com

Spoiler: Grixis wildfire (safra)

grixis wildfire control from CubeTutor.com

Spoiler: Ramprakul (Alfonzo Bonzo)

abzan ramp control from CubeTutor.com

COMBO:

Spoiler: Junk reanimator (safra)

Junk Reanimator from CubeTutor.com

Spoiler: RW Eldrazi Swans (safra)

The Great Annihilator (Eldrazi Swans control) from CubeTutor.com

Spoiler: Welder/Reanimator (safra)

Jund Welder from CubeTutor.com

This is starting to look a lot more promising, I think. I'm not there yet but it's coming together. I'm actually happiest with the Swans deck so far, it feels strong.

 

[anotak]

so i havent played mtg in a while so i had to read some of the newer cards, so my evaluations might be a bit off.
p1p1 i saw an isochron sceptor, so i decided, oh cool, maybe i can build around this. i couldn't, even though i picked cards to combine with it over better picks several times, there just weren't enough of them. felt like a bad trap.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/599883

anotak's draft of Exploratory Sketch on 06/09/2016 from CubeTutor.com