I've actually thought a bit about that because almost all players are playing 3 color decks and maybe it leads to people making unfocused builds.
General Decks that have 3-0'd your cube
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
My flatmate dislikes my cube because the fixing is so good that 3/4 color goodstuff is a winning deck. Neither of us like that. I do love the baller 4-color aggro decks that I get to throw together, but still, I wanna fight goodstuff. What do? he suggests putting some LD back in red, like Avalanche Riders. All that stuff came out ages ago, but I see his point.
What I'm super curious about is how much of this has to do with the fixing and how the color pair archetypes are set up. My preference would be tight 2 color splash a 3rd, the four colour ones are really ugly to me. Are these decks just a symptom of these styles of cube?
Without knowing too much about your cube, my first guess would be that it isn't the strong fixing that's leading to too many good stuff decks; it's more likely that too much of your cube being good stuff is leading to that. Cards that are raw two-for-ones that don't require any synergy but pack a large amount of power and board presence tend to be the culprits - your Cloudgoat Rangers, Liliana of the Veils, Flametongue Kavus, Garruk Wildspeakers, and the like. Titans are also guilty of pushing midrange to the top of the heap, to a degree.
I know this isn't really what you asked for, but you might also want to consider giving control decks more tools to combat midrange that won't just be pilfered during the draft portion. Efficient removal spells like Ultimate Price can go in any deck, but narrower removal like Condemn and Oust typically make it back around to the control player. Other options: Tamiyo, the Moon Sage is a strong planeswalker that's expensive enough that midrange usually isn't interested; Think Twice really rewards the slow decks; Profane Command is a great, versatile finisher in black; Pyroclasm is of no use to midrange, but gives control a lot of breathing room; Terminus would give white a much-needed third sweeper; Unburial Rites lets a control deck put away a long game for good; Aetherling is a classic finisher that skips right over giant board stalls, while Nephalia Drownyard is a finisher that doesn't even take a deck slot. Stuff like that.
I know this isn't really what you asked for, but you might also want to consider giving control decks more tools to combat midrange that won't just be pilfered during the draft portion. Efficient removal spells like Ultimate Price can go in any deck, but narrower removal like Condemn and Oust typically make it back around to the control player. Other options: Tamiyo, the Moon Sage is a strong planeswalker that's expensive enough that midrange usually isn't interested; Think Twice really rewards the slow decks; Profane Command is a great, versatile finisher in black; Pyroclasm is of no use to midrange, but gives control a lot of breathing room; Terminus would give white a much-needed third sweeper; Unburial Rites lets a control deck put away a long game for good; Aetherling is a classic finisher that skips right over giant board stalls, while Nephalia Drownyard is a finisher that doesn't even take a deck slot. Stuff like that.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Aetherling is a little bit too unsolvable for my tastes, but the rest are good suggestions. Ultimate Price would be pretty weird in my cube, with all the gold creatures running around...
Yeah, it's definitely on the strong side for some cubes, and for a while I felt it was too powerful for mine. But then I realized it was one of the best tools for control to break a ground stall against midrange, while at the same time not being very good against an aggro weenie rush, because you're usually forced to play it as soon as possible on turn six with "shields down".
Hm, I do like the suggestion of not necessarily making removal worse so much as shifting its axis. Maybe I can let removal be more there for control and give aggro tricks as a way to get through?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I've generally found that Johnny and Timmy type players naturally lean towards multi-color midrange or control strategies. A stereotypical Johnny will over engineer things, which strong fixing allows, while a stereotypical Timmy has no idea what is going on, and needs good fixing (and strong value midrange creatures) to make up for the unwillingness to learn how to make mundane decisions about resource allocation, valuation, and how to have a curve.
Any and all exaggeration aside, what Eric said, but in our fetchland based worlds, there is also nothing in place to really check color greed, and people do get color greedy. In the legacy environments that inspired the original riptide paradigm, you have stifle and wasteland fueling aggressive mana denial strategies, but you don't really have that in cube draft, because stifle is too narrow.
Any and all exaggeration aside, what Eric said, but in our fetchland based worlds, there is also nothing in place to really check color greed, and people do get color greedy. In the legacy environments that inspired the original riptide paradigm, you have stifle and wasteland fueling aggressive mana denial strategies, but you don't really have that in cube draft, because stifle is too narrow.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I think less fixing might actually be the answer then? Or fixing that rewards aggro strategies, and thus a natural tendency to play less colors?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I was thinking more along the lines of aggro-friendly disruption, though their might not exist a good solution.
wait, is this kind of like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, where he is the Dark Lord and we're lowly Muggles
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
This is, once upon a time I read an article on this website about adding a legacy feeling to cube via stifle-wasteland-fetchland-brainstorm interactions, ran 3 trickbinds in my cube which never did anything, than starting looking at actual lists and saw people were running, at most, 1 stifle. I was than immediatly happy I had not shelled out real money for stifles.
I do not know Harry Potter; but if you translate it into Lord of the Rings, now we are talking.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Unexpected Potential for Opposition? Man, that seems filthy 
Oh yeah! Neat. Unexpected Potential feels like a World knit that doest just break the draft.
Wr Aggro is really powerful in my cube it seems.. ..or there is only one person going aggro in each draft
Cute cube, how was secure? Man I am so torn about talia so much of the time...
I never resolved it because of countermagic, so can't really say how it worked.
Also this deck beatdown too fast so couldn't really get to try my other endgame plans that much either.
Had a 4 turn kill start once: t1 champion, t2 gather the townsfolk, t3 mirror entity, t4 pump your team for 4 mana
Saw it once in my hand and cast it for 6 mana, it closed the game in two turns because my opponent didn't have enough blockers.
This deck had enough synergy with it, so i don't see it being a bad inclusion.
Thalia has been bad ass in my cube, these last two weekends white based aggro with thalia has gone 3-0.
Ran a 6 man draft tonight, we had a lot of good red cards in our pool so both I and the guy who went 3-0 made some fun Aggro decks. I went with a Mardu Aggro playing a ton of one-drops (I think like 8) and topping out at 4 on my curve. I don't know how many Dash guys you all are running, but it was awesome for me tonight. Especially with Shrine of Burning Rage, just filthy. The 3-0 deck was an RG deck that had great fixing and a nasty curve:
It just ran roughshod over every deck it faced tonight aside from a Worldknit deck running stuff like Obzedat, Deranged Hermit, Phyrexian Reclamation and some other good stuff. There was a Grixis Control list playing Silumgar's Command (which did some work from what I heard), GW midrange, and my favorite deck was probably a Jeskai build that had initially started off as veering towards Mono Blue Devotion. Around pack 2 he got a Jeskai Ascendancy and decided to go more into that wedge. I overran him in our two matches with my critical mass of one-drops, but in another game we played for fun I got to see the full power of the deck.
A single Shu-Yun alongside Jeskai Ascendancy plus 5 mana up was super daunting for me to go up against with my board of 2/1's and an Alesha. I had no interest in running into a potential 5/4 wall that just ate up my creatures. He bought himself enough time by stalling me with Shu-Yun that he was able to get his Monastery Mentor and just go off with tokens and basically double Prowess off Ascendancy. He eventually managed to Cryptic my team then push through enough damage next turn with his monks all at +4/+4 off Prowess + Ascendancy. It was amazing to watch and really fun to go up against, Ascendancy is a definite keeper!
GR Aggro
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It just ran roughshod over every deck it faced tonight aside from a Worldknit deck running stuff like Obzedat, Deranged Hermit, Phyrexian Reclamation and some other good stuff. There was a Grixis Control list playing Silumgar's Command (which did some work from what I heard), GW midrange, and my favorite deck was probably a Jeskai build that had initially started off as veering towards Mono Blue Devotion. Around pack 2 he got a Jeskai Ascendancy and decided to go more into that wedge. I overran him in our two matches with my critical mass of one-drops, but in another game we played for fun I got to see the full power of the deck.
A single Shu-Yun alongside Jeskai Ascendancy plus 5 mana up was super daunting for me to go up against with my board of 2/1's and an Alesha. I had no interest in running into a potential 5/4 wall that just ate up my creatures. He bought himself enough time by stalling me with Shu-Yun that he was able to get his Monastery Mentor and just go off with tokens and basically double Prowess off Ascendancy. He eventually managed to Cryptic my team then push through enough damage next turn with his monks all at +4/+4 off Prowess + Ascendancy. It was amazing to watch and really fun to go up against, Ascendancy is a definite keeper!
What dash cards are you running? It actually seems like a really sweet mechanic, when you're looking for all kinds of different triggers. (Dashing in with mardu scout with a Purphoros seems filthy)
I've seen all of them in action aside from Strike Leader (really want to curve this into Braids one time), and they've been solid. Most surprising was Goblin Heelcutter who has just been great in pretty much every deck he's been played in. Taking their best blocker out of the picture and forcing through an extra 3 damage is really really good for aggro decks. Instead of just running into a brick wall that stymies your entire plan, you can work around it pretty effectively.
Berserker was pretty sweet last night for me. I basically played Mardu humans with a ton of 1 and 2 drops. My Champion of the Parish grew to stupid proportions with raiding Bloodsoaked Champion and dashed Lightning Berserkers.
I really really love Dash as a mechanic. It's a way for aggro to push through damage and make an impact without committing to the board. You don't get completely wrecked by a wrath after barfing your hand onto the field like you would traditionally. Being able to apply pressure without getting 3-for-1'd off a wrath gives aggro some really good reach over the course of the game. You can also pull of sweet plays in the late game like me topdecking a Zurgo Bellstriker, dashing it, flashback Reckless Charge, then put two counters on it off Citadel Siege. So gross.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Dash is sweet, love the Shrine Synergy, didn't think of that. It also works with things like
Extorters
Outpost Siege
Champion of the Parish for the humans
Impact Tremors
Champion of Lambholt
Extorters
Outpost Siege
Champion of the Parish for the humans
Impact Tremors
Champion of Lambholt
Chris Taylor
Contributor
And if you want Pitiless Horde is also strong.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Had a Cube-a-thon over Easter weekend. Five different Cubes were drafted and good times were had by all.
In our host's main Cube (3-1):
This one was really fun! In the first match I had to use Pod + Ral Zarek (+ Perilous Myr) to kill my opponent through Mother of Runes + creature while Podding into Ram-Gang to attack for lethal. I had some pretty nice Survival -> double Vengevine turns and good Zoo draws as well. Never got to Pod Vorapede -> Zegana though
In his graveyard Cube I had this:
and I finally got to draft my Cube! We had one big 12-man Pod, where these decks went 3-1 or better:
I forced this to see how good the Heroic deck would be. It turned out well, though this was more of an aggro deck; Spiritdancer and a few Auras sat in the SB, along with Brindle Shoat/Young Wolf/Precursor Golem (all of which came in against certain decks). The best play with this one was stealing a game with a topdecked Boon Satyr with Selesnya Charm on a Fabled Hero to deal lethal out of nowhere.
Revelation and Ugin were outstanding. The guy who played it doesn't Cube much afaik, but he said it was the most powerful deck he's drafted.
The highlight of this one was Dig Through Time taking Batterskull/Dismember and putting Mulldrifter, Redcap, and Rager on the bottom in order to set up a perfect Grenzo chain.
In our host's main Cube (3-1):
Birthing Zoo
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This one was really fun! In the first match I had to use Pod + Ral Zarek (+ Perilous Myr) to kill my opponent through Mother of Runes + creature while Podding into Ram-Gang to attack for lethal. I had some pretty nice Survival -> double Vengevine turns and good Zoo draws as well. Never got to Pod Vorapede -> Zegana though
In his graveyard Cube I had this:
GW Aggro Loam
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and I finally got to draft my Cube! We had one big 12-man Pod, where these decks went 3-1 or better:
GWiffin Guide
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I forced this to see how good the Heroic deck would be. It turned out well, though this was more of an aggro deck; Spiritdancer and a few Auras sat in the SB, along with Brindle Shoat/Young Wolf/Precursor Golem (all of which came in against certain decks). The best play with this one was stealing a game with a topdecked Boon Satyr with Selesnya Charm on a Fabled Hero to deal lethal out of nowhere.
Uw Control
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Revelation and Ugin were outstanding. The guy who played it doesn't Cube much afaik, but he said it was the most powerful deck he's drafted.
Grenzo Grixis
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The highlight of this one was Dig Through Time taking Batterskull/Dismember and putting Mulldrifter, Redcap, and Rager on the bottom in order to set up a perfect Grenzo chain.