Card/Deck Cutting Some Excesses

[Karn Cuberated]

I know I may be asking a stupid question/the one that has been asked multiple times somewhere in this forum, but
We want 3 aggro decks to appear per draft (along with 2 control, 2 midrange and 1 tempo decks). To give them the needed support and make them more or less consistent, we would need around 21 1-CMC creatures. Our current list has 26. That means I need to cut 4-5 1-drops not to oversupport aggro, and here comes the problem.
What do I swap them for? Most of the needed resources, like card advantage, removal pieces, ramp effects and other stuff seem to be in proper amounts. I may be mistaken, though.
I'd like to ask the community for some recomendations on this part.
The current list:
https://www.cubetutor.com/viewcurve/98102

 

[Erik Twice]

I don't think it's a stupid question at all!

Personally, I would use those slots for archetype support. You do not seem to be lacking any basics. Your cube plays the usual suite of cards, it just doesn't seem to have many cards that take you off the beaten path. I see, for example, that you have a bunch of Eldrazi but only one card that plays with them (Sneak Attack). I can actually see people casting Sneak Attack, dropping Ulamog and then losing to the good old combo of Lightning bolt plus your face.

Playing ramp seems difficult in your cube. The deck I drafted had 7 burn spells and a lot of ways to get damage through. Looking at your green creatures, only Obstinate Baloth and Deep Forest Hermit seem good enough to turn the tide against aggro. I can see a lot of games in which the aggro player kills three creatures in a row and the defending player can't do anything before his life total is at a virtual zero. After all, it's not just a matter of ramping and winning. It's a matter of ramping and surviving long enough without the Red player finishing you off. I can see many times in which the aggro player hits two good creatures, two discard spells and wins.

Still, your cube looks fine. Better than mine, much more focused. So I would not worry too much. I would just think of what interesting themes you can add with the free slots you have available.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

I don't think it's a stupid question at all!

Personally, I would use those slots for archetype support. You do not seem to be lacking any basics. Your cube plays the usual suite of cards, it just doesn't seem to have many cards that take you off the beaten path. I see, for example, that you have a bunch of Eldrazi but only one card that plays with them (Sneak Attack). I can actually see people casting Sneak Attack, dropping Ulamog and then losing to the good old combo of Lightning bolt plus your face.

Playing ramp seems difficult in your cube. The deck I drafted had 7 burn spells and a lot of ways to get damage through. Looking at your green creatures, only Obstinate Baloth and Deep Forest Hermit seem good enough to turn the tide against aggro. I can see a lot of games in which the aggro player kills three creatures in a row and the defending player can't do anything before his life total is at a virtual zero. After all, it's not just a matter of ramping and winning. It's a matter of ramping and surviving long enough without the Red player finishing you off. I can see many times in which the aggro player hits two good creatures, two discard spells and wins.

Still, your cube looks fine. Better than mine, much more focused. So I would not worry too much. I would just think of what interesting themes you can add with the free slots you have available.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Well, besides Sneak Attack there are also Through the Breach and the less powerful, but, probably, still functional Nahiri, the Harbinger, which were intended to go with Eldrazi. Plus, we have Tooth and Nail, which can create combo with, say, Zealous Conscripts + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, giving it haste. Do you think we need more cards that go with big stuff? Or you meant that we need more different ways to interact with it?
As for the Ramp, I will try to give it more support. The thing is we treet this archetype quite cautiously, since its Tooth and Nail into Dragonlord Atarka is already quite devastating for aggro. So, we tried to make the path to casting the payoff not so easy. Plus, Ramp player will often be able to cast nasty things like Inferno Titan and Batterskull ahead of curve. But we might have been TOO careful with it.
Btw, besides throwing in some creatures that are good against aggro, would it be nice to add a Primal Command? At first I thought giving Green another powerful lifegain effect (which Command will likely often be used as against Aggro) would be an act of hatred against aggressive decks, but now I'm less worried about that.
EDIT: Probably, it's time to finally test Boom // Bust in one of the vacant slots. Seems to be an interesting alternative way to close the game out for Gruul/Jund midrange, especially considering Wrenn and Six.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I know I may be asking a stupid question/the one that has been asked multiple times somewhere in this forum, but
We want 3 aggro decks to appear per draft (along with 2 control, 2 midrange and 1 tempo decks). To give them the needed support and make them more or less consistent, we would need around 21 1-CMC creatures. Our current list has 26. That means I need to cut 4-5 1-drops not to oversupport aggro, and here comes the problem.
What do I swap them for? Most of the needed resources, like card advantage, removal pieces, ramp effects and other stuff seem to be in proper amounts. I may be mistaken, though.
I'd like to ask the community for some recomendations on this part.
The current list:
https://www.cubetutor.com/viewcurve/98102

If anything, I actually think you need to increase your density of 1-drops for aggro. I looked at your cube, and I counted 22 one-drop creatures across 5 colors which I would want to play in an aggro deck. You're only running 5(!) 1-drop creatures in red right now, which isn't enough for most aggro decks to function, let alone multiple. You're not even running Gingerbrute!

I think the best thing you can do for your aggro section is to continue to use cards which aggro decks like to play and other decks can use. Thraben Inspector goes in white weenie, but is also fine in U/W control. Satyr's Cunning is good as a recursive threat in red aggro, but is also a repeatable string of spells for U/R Spellslinger and some flavor of Dredge. Instead of running a million Savannah Lions variants which only go in aggro, you could try Gideon's Lawkeeper, Giant Killer, and other tappers which Aggro likes to play, but control is happy with running as well. Basically, think less about what you can cut from your aggro decks to add to the rest of the cube, but think what you can add to your aggro decks to help the rest of the cube.

Hopefully this helps!

 

[Karn Cuberated]

If anything, I actually think you need to increase your density of 1-drops for aggro. I looked at your cube, and I counted 22 one-drop creatures across 5 colors which I would want to play in an aggro deck. You're only running 5(!) 1-drop creatures in red right now, which isn't enough for most aggro decks to function, let alone multiple. You're not even running Gingerbrute!

The thing with red section is there're also Signal Pest and Figure of Destiny, which, I guess, could count as red, too. As for Gingerbrute, I don't feel like it's good enough for our power level. Plus, it doesn't contribute to the Modern-feel philosophy. I previously ran Thraben Inspector, but now I'm not sure what to cut for him now... Mardu Woe-Reaper is likely to become a Dauntless Bodyguard soon, and adding the 8th 1-drop to the white kinda warps the colour pie?
Talking about numbers, yesterday we realized that it might not be even necessary to cut 1-drops so aggressively, since there are several ones that can go both into aggro and midrange: Hexdrinker, Student of Warfare, Giver of Runes and the mentioned above Figure of Destiny. I, probably, will bring back 1-2, see how it works out for drafters, and if we feel like there are too many 1-drops, we have some cards in mind that might replace them.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

The thing with red section is there're also Signal Pest and Figure of Destiny, which, I guess, could count as red, too. As for Gingerbrute, I don't feel like it's good enough for our power level. Plus, it doesn't contribute to the Modern-feel philosophy. I previously ran Thraben Inspector, but now I'm not sure what to cut for him now... Mardu Woe-Reaper is likely to become a Dauntless Bodyguard soon, and adding the 8th 1-drop to the white kinda warps the colour pie?
Talking about numbers, yesterday we realized that it might not be even necessary to cut 1-drops so aggressively, since there are several ones that can go both into aggro and midrange: Hexdrinker, Student of Warfare, Giver of Runes and the mentioned above Figure of Destiny. I, probably, will bring back 1-2, see how it works out for drafters, and if we feel like there are too many 1-drops, we have some cards in mind that might replace them.

White having an 8th one drop also isn't effecting it's color pie slice in any meaningful way. White has always been caught between it's two strengths of "go wide" and "nuke the entire board." Since the primary mono-white deck in modern is some sort of death and taxes variant (which is a curve out with creatures tempo/aggro deck in a cube setting), I think giving in to white's more low-cost side is fine. White has a lot of one-drops that aren't exclusively aggro cards, too. Giant Killer, for example, is a card an aggressive deck is happy to play as a one drop with upside, but control is also happy to play it as a Kill spell that draws a creature.

As for Gingerbrute, I can assure you that the card is, in fact, a power house. It's on par with Signal Pest in my experience. It's a hasty threat with built in evasion. By turn 4, paying for the unblockable ability is just not going to matter most of the time. The card actually has been showing up a lot in affinity, too. If you need any more confirmation of the card's power level, read Usman's Article about Gingerbrute in cube. I understand not feeling comfortable putting too many new cards into a format cube. However, there are times when it makes sense to sacrifice a little bit of flavor for format coherence. Gingerbrute is a great card that any aggro deck can play and be happy with.

 

[Karn Cuberated]

All right, you convinced me to try out Gingerbrute in the future! Thanks!