Dom's Stream of Consciousness

[Dom Harvey]

I'm going deep in the paint on Cube design again and I'll document that process here, but in the meantime I'll post a series of random observations.

==

Configuring Fixing

Ahadabans had a post a while ago about using variety in manabases to add diversity to gameplay and send signals to drafters. I've been locked in on the double fetch + double shock model for a while and fleshed out those manabases with the creature lands, Temples etc so there wasn't much room to experiment. There shouldn't be any sacred cows, though, and it's worth thinking about what these choices say about your environment.

Some useful cycles of lands:
- Fetches
- Shocks/original duals (might be worth mixing these up; say UR Control is struggling vs aggro, upgrading Steam Vents to Volcanic Island will help a fair bit without demanding other changes)
- Cycling duals (allied colours only, but maybe should proxy the others?)
- Creature lands (near-universally great but fight for space with other CIPT lands)
- Temples (at their best in midrange/control)
- Fastlands (at their best in aggro or decks with cheap gold cards; I know someone here has these edited to have basic land types, which is a very smart change that I'd steal if I ran customs)
- Painlands* (at their best in aggro, at their worst in colour-intensive decks)
- Filter lands* (at their best in colour-intensive decks, at their worst in decks with 1-drops concentrated in one colour)
- Bouncelands (at their best in midrange/control, or in slower environments in general; land count/hand size matters; synergy with Temples and cycling duals; might want to proxy enemy-coloured ones, especially UR)
- Borderposts (help artifact synergies and random stuff like devotion or land count matters; compete with other fixing as well as other CIPT lands)

Also note random singletons like the Future Sight cycle or Murmuring Bosk.

*These add C for Eldrazi, in case that's relevant

Let's start by looking at what kind of lands each colour might want in my current design(s).

White: An aggressive colour with lots of 1-drops and heavy white mana requirements. The Plains land type actually matters because of Tithe/Knight of the White Orchid/Eternal Dragon; land count matters for first two plus Land Tax. The cycling duals are perfect here because turning Plains tutors or bouncelands into cyclers is nice. Artifacts matter so Borderposts gain points. Eldrazi Displacer is a really nice payoff if the mana works but is only a tiebreaker. Temples are also nice for a colour with woefully little card selection. Lands with ETB effects work with Kor Skyfisher/Flickerwisp.
- Lean: shocks/duals, cyclers, bouncelands, Borderposts, filter lands, Temples?

Blue: A combo colour focusing on artifacts and playing lots of instants/sorceries. Card draw/discard is a pushed subtheme (to the point that good old Lonely Sandbar gets a look in), so cyclers gain points; ditto for card manipulation and Temples/fetches. These both suggest bouncelands but - especially with Borderposts as well - that's a lot of tapped lands; blue is fine with that because it has few one-drops, but that won't be ok for all U/X pairs. If I want to support the Familiar-style combo decks, bouncelands are even better.
- Lean: cyclers, Temples, bouncelands, Borderposts, fetchlands

Black: An aggressive colour with lots of 1-drops and heavy black mana requirements. There are lots of Swamps matter cards but idk if I want to play any of them (Crypt Ghast? Lashwrithe?). Bouncelands are nifty as discard outlets for graveyard stuff (black has surprisingly few good ways to pitch cards conveniently) and enablers for cards like Smallpox or Death Cloud that reduce the size of the game.
- Lean: shocks/duals, fastlands, filter lands, bouncelands?

Red: Much more of a midrange/combo colour than in most Cubes. Lots of artifact synergies and Looting/Tormenting Voice effects, which favour Borderposts/bouncelands. Not aggressive by itself but WR and BR both strongly lean aggro.
- Lean: Borderposts, bouncelands, untapped lands

Green: Lands! Green is all about exploiting lands in every way possible. Fetches are great for landfall, Loam, etc., creature lands become sticky threats, cyclers become card draw engines, bouncelands let you do it all again and are combo pieces in their own right.
- Lean: fetchlands, creature lands, cyclers, bouncelands


Now we can look at how these priorities overlap and compete within colour pairs. Each pair gets its fetchland and shockland, and then we add to those; for now, I'm assuming 6-7 total fixers per pair (should this be variable too?). Where there's no strong preference, shocks/duals (/cyclers) and especially fetchlands are preferred as these can offer indirect fixing to other pairs.

WU: Both want cyclers, Borderposts, bouncelands, maybe Temples. Colonnade is a great creature land but that's a lot of tappy bois; on the other hand, WU is a less aggressive pair than WB or WR.
- Fixing: Hallowed Fountain #2, Irrigated Farmland, Fieldmist Borderpost, Azorius Chancery, Celestial Colonnade/Temple of Enlightenment?

UB: Both want Borderposts and bouncelands but not strongly. The artifact deck doesn't care too much about its lands and black doesn't contribute too much there anyway, other UB decks tend to be graveyard-centric or more controlling (where CIPT lands are fine, if not encouraged). Creeping Tar Pit is very solid but CIPT saturation is still real. Delve and other graveyard stuff make Delta a little better.
- Fixing: Polluted Delta #2, Fetid Pools, Mistvein Borderpost, Sunken Ruins/River of Tears (beautiful and CIP untapped mid-game unlike Darkslick Shores)?, Creeping Tar Pit?

BR: Rakdos Carnarium isn't a common choice but might be what I need? Red wants a Borderpost (ideally UR but ya know...) and BR is better than RG. Unfortunately Lavaclaw Reaches might be the worst creature land, but that's still a high bar. BR tends to be aggressive so that's the default
- Fixing: Bloodstained Mire #2, Canyon Slough, Blackcleave Cliffs, Graven Cairns?

RG: Red doesn't care much and kinda wants bouncelands anyway so green can do what it wants. If I try supporting RG Aggro again (which was shockingly difficult!), more untapped or aggro-friendly lands could come in instead; I found Gruul Turf wasn't doing too much even in decks that looked like they wanted it
- Fixing: Wooded Foothills #2, Sheltered Thicket, Raging Ravine, Gruul Turf, Grove of the Burnwillows (+ Punishing Fire)?

GW: The Plains/land matters stuff and green's love of lands intersect here. GW creature decks don't mind having.
- Fixing: Windswept Heath #2, Scattered Groves, Selesnya Sanctuary, Horizon Canopy, Krosan Verge?

WB: Very aggressive (not much else for WB to do) and colour-intensive, still want Plains and there's no cycler to get. Fetid Heath really shines here. Shambling Vent and Temple of Silence would be good in WB Control if it existed
- Fixing: Marsh Flats #2, Godless Shrine #2, Concealed Courtyard, Fetid Heath

BG: Definitely the most diverse colour pair in my Cubes, supports both B-heavy aggro and G-heavy aggro as well as midrange/control/combo. All possible lands are great here
- Fixing: Verdant Catacombs #2, Overgrown Tomb #2, Blooming Marsh, Twilight Mire, Golgari Rot Farm?

GU: Both want fetchlands, bouncelands, Temples. All about ramp and combo
- Fixing: Misty Rainforest #2, Breeding Pool #2, Temple of Mystery, Simic Growth Chamber

UR: Both want bouncelands, blue wants fetchlands and Temples. Primarily combo-control
- Fixing: Scalding Tarn #2, Steam Vents #2, Temple of Epiphany, Izzet Boilerworks

RW: Everything above about WB applies here though midrangey RW decks are more real so Needle Spires/Temple are more appealing and there's no heavy white vs heavy black tension so filters are less important
- Fixing: Arid Mesa #2, Sacred Foundry #2, Inspiring Vantage, Temple of Triumph

It's worth noting just how useful the cycle lands are as a secondary fetchland target that have a ton of neat interactions elsewhere.

I can't guarantee this will play out better than double fetch + double shock + creature lands etc but I'm excited to try it.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Ixalan/Rivals review:

Legion's Landing: A great 1-drop that pushes the incidental go-wide theme along with Kytheon and Windbrisk Heights, neat synergy with Kor Skyfisher/Flickerwisp and random stuff like Cloudstone Curio. The low-curve white decks are more mana-hungry than you'd think as there are tons of mana sinks (Figure/Student, Mikaeus, Secure the Wastes etc) and sometimes you get to ramp into a 4-drop or 5-drop and it's perfect

Chart a Course: A more generally useful Careful Study but I don't expect to trigger the fake Raid on this too often

Search for Azcanta: I absolutely love it, it's great by itself and also plays off the same mini-theme as Jace VP and Shelldock Isle (great company to be in!). The spells decks really want extra mana and don't necessarily want to take a turn off to play a mana rock so even just transforming into an Island would often be enough

Siren Stormtamer: Good in Protect the Queen decks and a slam dunk if you support blue aggro

Spell Swindle: This vs Confirm Suspicions is an interesting question but for most people the answer is neither

Captain Lannery Storm: Kinda cool but there are lots of cool red 3s

Makeshift Munitions: A good toned-down Goblin Bombardment; which one you play is a useful benchmark of your Cube's power level

Rampaging Ferocidon: Excellent if you support that kind of aggro deck

Sunbird's Invocation: I'll put this in my Cube and nobody except me will ever take it

Growing Rites of Itlimoc: I want this to be good but everyone I've seen try it in any format says it's a trap

Ripjaw Raptor: Appeals to me as a weird combo piece but idk what that would look like

Hostage Taker: Fantastic at what it does and getting to use your opponent's cards encourages varied and interesting gameplay

Primal Amulet: Absolutely love this; it's an enabler and payoff card in one for the spells deck and copying expensive instants/sorceries is one of the best feelings in Cube

Thaumatic Compass: I liked Journeyer's Kite when I started playing but it really hasn't aged well

Treasure Map: Fits in any deck that isn't hyper-aggressive and particularly helps the non-blue control decks that can't really compete with blue's card draw otherwise

Field of Ruin: If you want land destruction that doesn't hurt yourself (Ghost Quarter) or your format (Wasteland), this might be it


Overall a very uninspiring set with a few valuable role-players

==

Induced Amnesia: Cool design but exclusively for dodgy Legacy/Vintage decks AFAICT

Riverwise Augur: I've wanted this effect on a creature for ages but I wish this didn't cost 4...

Ravenous Chupacabra: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/216352863

Tetzimoc, Primal Death: Love the design and love that it's inherently fair with reanimation

Tomb Robber: Sweet but needs to be a 2/2

Dire Fleet Daredevil: !!!

Rekindling Phoenix: Better than a lot of Phoenixes (Ashcloud Phoenix?) because it loops itself for free

Tilonalli's Summoner: I should love this but it highlights how awkward Ascend can be and Summoner always gets picked off in combat so you're only getting one attack from a lot of mana

Jadelight Ranger: I didn't like this at first and I have no idea how. It's the perfect intersection of every durdly minor subtheme I want to support: Recruiters/Reveillark, blink, GY interactions, counters, lands, and many more. Even out of context it's a really neat card with a great range of payoffs: sometimes you get a discount Mulldrifter, sometimes you get a 4/3 while binning two cards that want to be in the yard. Even if you brick on the first explore (say if you need a land) you get another shot at it. We talk a lot about ETB spam but explore is ETB done right: there's some variance and depth to it so you're not just repeating the same effect and the card you 'draw' is only ever a land so you're not loading up on spells at low cost

Thrashing Brontodon: Reclamation Sage was always underwhelming so this is very welcome

World Shaper: I was already doing everything I could to prop up Splendid Reclamation and this is the same effect on a scary blocker that's self-supporting if you get to attack with it, works nicely with sac outlets and reanimation (in conjunction with the same effect that pad your GY for Shaper) and is much easier to find with all of green's Mulch/Gather the Pack variants that conveniently mill you for a bunch

Azor's Gateway: A bizarro Treasure Map?

Gleaming Barrier: I like this a fair bit

The Immortal Sun: Such a random hotchpotch of abilities; I'm not sure what kind of deck even wants this but it might be a good Welder target??

Journey to Eternity: B, G, and BG already have so many sacrifice interactions that the bar is set very high, but I think and hope this clears it. Outside of dream scenarios with Sakura-Tribe Elder, the upside of flipping it is so great that it's fine just putting this on an Eldrazi Scion or something disposable. It reminds me of Pattern of Rebirth, another card I'm very fond of, so this is a nice addition to that sub-theme (that I'll write up soon)

Probably better than Ixalan overall despite being a smaller set; I'm hoping for better from the next block

 

[inscho]

When do we get to see that shiny new cube list?

 

[Dom Harvey]

There's no one list right now, just a bunch of half-finished CubeTutor sketches. I want to get something more definitive though and I know I'll never be fully satisfied with a first draft, so I may as well finish one and put it here

 

[inscho]

Oh, I know that all too well. I have 6+ working versions of my cube on cubetutor at any given time.

 

[Dom Harvey]

In Search Of R/G: Tokens Combo

Since this great thread from a few years ago both green and red have gained new dimensions with recent printings, but RG as a colour pair hasn't made much progress. Ideas I've tried in the past:

- Berserkers (see OP!): Green naturally has the largest creatures, some of the best power enhancers, and the eponymous Berserk; Red is reckless and angry and gives the deck a more aggressive bent, getting Villain in range of a combo kill and forcing them to take the shields down for a turn to deal with on-board pressure. Gold cards like Kird Ape/Flinthoof Boar, Voltaic Brawler, and Boggart Ram-Gang are a hard-hitting signal. This is a strong archetype and a fun one, but its brutal efficiency crowds out some of the other ideas I want to try so it's on the bench for now.

- Wildfires/Lands: Red blows up everyone's lands, green gets you more of them to break the symmetry. There are only a handful of actual Wildfire effects, and most of them are carbon copies of Wildfire itself. More of a sub-theme than anything else.

- Pinatas: Kill your Boros Reckoner/Hornet Nest/Stuffy Doll and also Villain. Fun but also lacks redundancy unless you look at other colours; is it Tamanoa time?!

Outside of that you have generic RG decks and others that look confused about their identity.

I started thinking about this angle when I played against a RG tokens deck in SoI Standard; it could go wide as you'd expect with buffs from Atarka's Command or Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, convert that to a different type of threat with Westvale Abbey, or use Cryptolith Rite to ramp into Dragonlord Atarka or Chandra, Flamecaller. It was a crude design but was capable of some very scary starts. With a more careful look at the wide range of options in Cube, I think it has a lot of potential.

This ties into a larger idea I've been mulling over for a while: using common in-game objects like creatures, tokens (Clues, Treasures), or more abstract things (cards in graveyard) as a basic currency and basing a Cube around lots of ways to exchange them for different resources. This naturally offers the cross-pollination between themes that we often talk about and most card/object types that are popular enough to qualify for this have enough answers that you can easily set boundaries - your deck will always have some creature removal and you can make sure the Cube has artifact hate.

Creatures - especially tokens - are perfect for this. The sacrifice/'Aristocrats' deck is a familiar example that spans almost all colour pairs - Bx is most common but it's also doable in WR, UR and, as we'll see, RG. There are enough artifacts that let you trade in creatures for useful effects that you can extend it wherever you like; blue isn't known as a creature/token-heavy colour, but using the blue creatures that care about artifacts to find/play those pieces and then cashing in those creatures is a good way to go. The appeal of RG is that it offers the most variety in your payoff cards and both colours are great at flooding the board with bodies. This lends itself to a wid range of playstyles: you can have an aggro deck that goes wide, a midrange deck with a token subtheme, or a combo deck that snowballs out of control over time.

Making creatures (not exhaustive, just a quick look):
0: Khalni Garden (very impressive in lands-based decks but also great here), Kher Keep, Spawning Bed
1: Blisterpod, Young Wolf, Oviya Pashiri/Rhys the Redeemed, Life // Death
2: Nest Invader, Strangleroot Geist, Mogg War Marshal, Kari Zev, Hangarback Walker, Aether Chaser, Young Pyromancer, Tilonalli's Summoner
3: Caller of the Claw, Hordeling Outburst, Pia Nalaar/Thopter Engineer, Kitchen Finks, Goblin Rabblemaster/Hanweir Garrison, Awakening Zone, Nissa Voice of Zendikar
4: Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Huntmaster of the Fells, Kozilek's Predator/Eyeless Watcher, Empty the Warrens, Master of the Wild Hunt, Garruks/Xenagos, Murderous Redcap
5: Siege-Gang Commander, Deranged Hermit, Ishkanah, Whisperwood Elemental, Saproling Burst, Titania, Doubling Season

Payoffs:
Mass pump: Reckless Bushwhacker, Hero of Oxid Ridge, Curse of Predation/Hero of Oxid Ridge, Purphoros, Sarkhan Vol
Damage: Hellrider, Goblin Bombardment, Makeshift Munitions, Blasting Station, Outpost Siege, Purphoros
More tokens: Spawning Pit
Mana: Earthcraft/Cryptolith Rite, Ashnod's Altar/Everythingamajig, Food Chain, Gaea's Cradle/Growing Rites of Itlimoc
Cards: Evolutionary Leap, Ineffable Blessing, Fecundity
Board presence: Westvale Abbey, Greater Gargadon, (Vehicles)

Setup:
Ancient Stirrings, Vessel of Nascency, Commune with the Gods

Some example decks:








Note how nicely the green top-X-cards tutors tie these decks together; I might end up doubling Vessel of Nascency.

This segues nicely into my one true love:

Pattern-Rector

One benefit of having played the game forever and obsessively reading old articles/coverage is you come across some great concepts that saw the light of day in Constructed, if only for a moment. A deck that's been lost to time but still appeals a lot to me is Pattern Rector:




With a Husk in play, Pattern (or Rector -> Pattern; can also chain Rector -> Pattern for as many extra creatures as you have) -> Symbiotic Wurm -> sac and sac all its babies for 20+ damage (same with Rector -> Burst). You can also find Yosei and then find Recurring Nightmare as a follow-up for the lock, or just get Rector and find whatever enchantment locks out your opponent (at the time, Worship/Decree of Silence/Confiscate were common SB bullets).

See also this Legacy deck from ~2011:



This is exactly the kind of adorable deck that Deathrite Shaman was designed to stomp out

I love the Pattern deck because it takes existing infrastructure - the sac shell we've all tried at some point - and grafts a versatile combo onto it. Rector and Pattern are fairly unique cards but there are enough adjacent effects that you can easily build around a similar shell:

Combos:
Saffi + Renegade Rallier/Sun Titan/Reveillark
Reveillark + Karmic Guide
Sun Titan + Animate Dead/Necromancy

Outlets:
Greater Good: Completely busted in the right shell, this might be it; all but guarantees you find what you need to close out the game even if it or your big thing gets removed

Journey to Eternity: The Hugo to Pattern's Bart, the flip-land is worth it even if you have to throw cards into the void. If you can trigger it manually for a benefit (Sakura-Tribe Elder!), it's incredible

Recurring Nightmare: ...yeah, this is still too good, but it's sooo perfect here that I might indulge myself

Replenish: I've wanted Replenish to work so badly and this might be just the ticket. It suffered from lack of payoff enchantments - good ones simply didn't exist, and now you have Sandwurm Convergence or Overwhelming Splendor but those do nothing except in the Replenish deck (and only then with Replenish/Rector). Maybe it's not meant to reanimate some 8CMC enchantment but bring together a bunch of smaller enchantments for combo purposes? Reanimation enchantments - Animate Dead, Necromancy - also offer a failsafe mode: I've run Breath of Life before, and Replenish as backdoor Breath of Life is fine. Getting back Saproling Burst + Purphoros, or Greater Good + Animate Dead/Necromancy is a lot more than fine! Can support with Eidolon of Blossoms/Doomwake Giant. Gets notably better with Vessel of Nascency.


An initial sketch:

 

[inscho]

Rector pattern is great. I support it in my cube. I don’t run Symbiotic Wurm due to how obscene it gets quickly in the Sneak Attack deck....but I do run Protean Hulk as added redundancy which has a ton of fun interactions. Yosei is a good idea as is Sun Titan. I’m so gun shy on the titans.

The big challenge for me is opening up rector for other archetypes. Currently trying to support it alongside Show and Tell as well as in a selesnya mana doubler deck with Mirari’s Wake. I've been flirting with Replenish, but I haven’t quite figured out how to incorporate it. I’ll share some of my thoughts on it when I get to a computer.

Pattern of Rebirth has been great support in the gruul sneak attack deck btw.

EDIT: I've been slowing chipping away at a primer for my cube, and here's the decklist sketch I came up with for Rector Pattern:


This list is a little more idealized and shows a lot of potential pieces, but it can operate on much less. Altar of Dementia and Protean Hulk is a looooot of fun. You can mill out an opponent or you can probably set up a crazy Living Death alpha strike.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Artifacts as Cornerstones

Lost a longer post so I'll skip the preamble but basically:

- The colour pie is a necessary concept but its implementation has led to certain colours lacking effects for reasons that don't hold up: white and red between them still can't buy a Divination after 25 years. This restricts the range of strategies available to the various colour pairs: control decks without blue or black are little more than a pile of removal and planeswalkers (which quickly overwhelm most other sources of card advantage and have important cascading effects on a format's structure).

- The lack of colour requirements means that even artifacts in a specific niche have a more universal appeal, especially if you make other card choices accordingly. Mesmeric Orb is a weird and narrow card but people here have found creative uses for it that wouldn't be possible if it only fit in one colour or colour pair. The same goes for combos: Life from the Loam + Wildfire is great but locks you into RGx, whereas something like Panharmonicon + Conjurer's Closet (with the plentiful ETB effects in any colour) can slot into colour pairs that might look very different otherwise. So while a normal Cube might have a generic UW deck and a UW Blink deck, with this route you can have both more archetypes - regular UW that's just doing its thing with a few artifacts, UW based around artifacts, and UW Blink where the Blink enablers/payoffs let you pivot between colours (in both design and drafting): maybe you now have a UR 'Blink' deck by default which you can move into when white is cut off and you've already picked up Erratic Portal and Voyager Staff.

As an example, I was trying to rebuild my sacrifice subtheme in BG and realized there are lots of colourless payoffs and enablers:



By shifting your focus to these, you can create new decks in other colours without any more effort. If you have a WR deck that wants to go wide with tokens, you can now convert those into other resources and go in a new direction. Alternatively, you can use these in your WG value creature deck to set up loops or access unique effects like mill or direct damage that aren't found in WG. Blue isn't associated with the Aristocrats decks but you can use cards like Chief Engineer or Glint-Nest Crane to find/cast artifacts and then use those same cards as fodder. Just by adding a handful of cards, you create a web of new strategies that cuts across traditional colour and archetype divisions. I've already written about using artifacts to fill out the crucial spots in the mana curve for aggro and thereby creating aggro decks where they didn't exist before; this extends that idea.

Let's look at some general tools:



It turns out white does have a Divination; it just needed one of the worst design mistakes in all of Magic to get one. The base rate on Gambit is uninspiring but, if proliferate is relevant in your environment, it suddenly becomes a centerpiece of your environment that's a no-brainer to double up on.

Treasure Map is the perfect example of what I'm going for. Crystal Ball was already a fringe Cube card, and this is much better in interesting ways. A BR or RW deck can deploy this on Turn 2 - underneath countermagic, if that's relevant - and work on it as a side-quest whenever you have spare mana. Trading one for one and flipping Treasure Map gives you a tremendous advantage; a common fail state for slower decks is having cards but not mana, or vice versa, and Map gives you both at the same time. The Treasures themselves are also great food for Welders, Tangle Wire, Smokestack...

Trading Post is an ersatz Planeswalker and cult favourite. I don't know if it's the type of card it makes sense to duplicate, but it can't hurt to try. It enables any cute synergies you want to push in some way or another.


On top of the cards already mentioned, here's a brief card dump:

Cloudstone Curio: Works as part of a blink package but extends that to card types that only the likes of Ghostly Flicker can reach: looping Cartouches/Trials with other Auras, Oaths, Legion's Landing; as a ramp tool/makeshift bounceland with Exploration effects and hideaway lands/Khalni Garden/Radiant Fountain

Zuran Orb: Can recreate the 90s classics with Balance or Necropotence, go off with Titania, or gain massive chunks of life with Splendid Reclamation etc. Not a mainstream Cube card but a really fun one if you put the work in

Mishra's Bauble: Never the star of the show but useful support for revolt, delirium, delve, threshold, surge, prowess, improvise/metalcraft... there's always some small synergy involving Bauble. Also a build-your-own-Scry with mill or shuffle effects

Spellbombs/Capsules/Implements: Colour-linked artifacts that tie typical effects to anything that keys off artifacts

Brittle Effigy: Expensive but no-questions-asked colourless removal is very hard to come by

Codex Shredder: Sits there doing good work for a few turns and promises to return a sweeper, your best threat, your missing combo piece; often the threat of that distorts Villain's play to the extent that you don't have to commit the mana to it immediately

Triangle of War: Mirage block flavour team fighting!

Key to the City: A great aggro finisher, rare discard outlet, and weird draw engine in one incoherent but effective package. Tapping this for Whirler Rogue feels wonderful!

Scroll Rack: Obvious combo with miracles but usually a finicky CA source with Life from the Loam and the like

Howling Mine/Anvil of Bogardan/Temple Bell: I'm very eager to hear people's experiences with these; I'm not sure what their home would even look like

Winter Orb: Surely GRBS but very good at its job

Gate to the Afterlife + God-Pharaoh's Gift: Impressive individually and as a package

Mimic Vat: Repetitive but leads to amazing game states; also doubles as a safeguard against value creature decks

and many more:
Oblivion Stone/Nevinyrral's Disk
Rings of Brighthearth
Aetherworks Marvel
Helm of Possession
Inspiring Statuary
Crucible of Worlds
Teferi's Puzzle Box
Alhammarret's Archive (I won't repeat myself, don't worry)
Primal Amulet
Gilded Lotus
Memory Jar
Scrap Trawler
Masticores
Solemn Simulacrum
Treasure Keeper
Crystalline Crawler
Precursor Golem
Duplicant
Myr Battlesphere
Metalwork Colossus

TL;DR: Artifacts are invaluable not just as staples that transcend colour boundaries but as narrow build-arounds whose status as artifacts caps how narrow they can be, making it easier to justify including any one of them (or lots of them in the same Cube) and easier to play them together.

 

[CaptnIrony]

Artifacts as Cornerstones

TL;DR: Artifacts are invaluable not just as staples that transcend colour boundaries but as narrow build-arounds whose status as artifacts caps how narrow they can be, making it easier to justify including any one of them (or lots of them in the same Cube) and easier to play them together.

I've had a similar idea in the past, and I want to make a cube that heavily took advantage of this, in addition to another small change I've wanted to make.

I've put in a bit of work into the skeleton, but the idea was a cube that was almost 50% colorless. I was to take the bottom X% of creatures in terms of power and shift them to a colorless equivalent. Red might get aggressive 1 drops as it always did, but its weakest pack filling 2-3-4 drops would be well-stated colorless creatures. A red deck could still be as aggresive, but would involve more colorless cards. A blue deck could now be aggressive, but ignore any support from its own color, the aggression would almost entirely come from the colorless suite, which would be lower power than a traditional agro deck, but better than the normal aggressive blue deck.

Colorless would also get it's own control suite, focussing on overcosted generic effects (think All is Dust, Scour from Existence, Brittle Effigy, Spine of Ish Sah, or various of the expensive Artifact Draw).

The idea is from baseline, every color could do anything, just as an extreme cost, by going through colorless (I realize now I've gone far off topic). I really had liked the idea though. Here are some things you might have a use for:

A Black can use the Baubles quite well. If you play discard stuff, you can run "each player discards" for less mana/more efficiency, and have a deck that tries to be continuously hellbent, but "saving" some of its cards as baubles. They're cheap, and crack them when you need the cards. They also work well with Extort.

You can add Artifact Fixing, and limit Green's Ramp to only green mana. Green keeps its ramp identity, prevents some problems with green decks playing as domain decks, keeps ramp out of the hands of the Non-Green Control decks, and allows for a weird Green/Colorless Super-Ramp deck.

I've totally gone off topic.

I'm leaving it.

I really like the idea though. I felt a bit clever in my own cube seeing a few "Packages" that could fit in any colors, and I'd like to see more. Speaking of Spellbombs, have you seen Salvaging Station? Its expensive, but could be a cool late game low power engine. I'm also playing Tapestry of the Ages as a weird Control deck support, to see if it works.

Also featuring:
Abandoned Sarcophagus
Contagion Engine
Staff of Nin
Well of Lost Dreams + Sun Droplet + Pristine Talisman (And Bounce lands, EtB Lifegain Lands)

 

[Dom Harvey]

GP London Draft Report - Jan 2018

Got to draft at the GP this weekend and I'm thrilled with how it went! The situation was a little strange (4 players, so 4 packs of 12, meaning fewer cards in the total card pool and different drafting dynamics; and we probably didn't shuffle the Cube enough as it was pre-sorted so there was a glut of W/B cards with less R/G and fixing than normal) so who knows how representative this is, but as an outline of what's possible it was very reassuring. Because of those issues all of us were in black - 3 of us heavily - but the colour seemed deep enough to support us all in a broad range of strategies.

WB Hyper-Aggro (0-3)

The 0-3 record worried me - this deck looks very strong, and it's possible that my Cube is so saturated with ETB effects and good defenders that even a good aggro deck can't break through. Its pilot is a good player too. OTOH, the deck was misbuilt by a few cards (this is the 'correct' version IMO) and there were some in-game misplays caused by inexperience with the cards (e.g. not killing Hostage Taker in response to the trigger). This is a good model for what I want aggro to look like: fast and resilient, with some cute synergies baked in:

- Seeker of the Way + Glint Hawk/Kor Skyfisher + artifacts
- Bygone Bishop + Kor Skyfisher/Stonecloaker (+ Restoration Angel)
- Carrion Feeder (or the Sunscourge Champion in the board!) + Gravecrawlers

You see a small artifact subtheme in here; this is about the bare minimum number of artifacts to make Hawk/Exemplar work. Looking at the other lists, you can see the effects of so many people fighting over the same colours - this deck would love Legion's Landing or Scrapheap Scrounger!

4C Ramp (2-1)

No web of synergy here, just a fun ramp deck with shades of Commander/Highlander/Singleton. Card notes:

- Harrow + Tireless Tracker came up against me and was as good as intended
- The guy who played this deck loved Thaumatic Compass: it fixed mana, ensured regular land drops (or Mox Diamond fuel), and was a valuable defensive tool in the late-game
- Cut // Ribbons was an all-star once again. I like Devil's Play a lot too but the front side is inefficient when it matters; Cut is a clean removal spell that helps advance the game to the point where Ribbons can come up. It's been impressive whenever I've tried it - in aggro, spells matter, control, and ramp. If you're doing silly things with Ashnod's Altar or w/e, it fits the bill as a super-ramp payoff that you actively want to draw on T2
- I wasn't sure how good Yosei would be in a format with lots of steal effects on top of exiling removal and in a deck with few ways to kill it. I'm glad that it proved strong anyway, as it's one of my favourite cards

Onto the more intricate and exciting decks:

WB Primal Tokens (2-1)

I wasn't quite sure what to make of this. A 42-card creature-heavy Primal Amulet deck? On closer inspection, and after playing with it myself, I realized that it's exactly what I hoped for: a drafter had built a deck with a bunch of intersecting engines without knowing anything going in.

- Sun Titan + anything but notably Liliana TLH (as removal insurance), Animate Dead (turning Titan into the world's biggest Karmic Guide), Blasting Station
- Entomb + Scourge of Nel Toth, Lingering Souls, Start // Finish, big creatures for Animate Dead, any of the above for Sun Titan
- Blasting Station + Kalitas to mow down every X/1 in sight, Puppeteer Clique to go completely nuts
- Ophiomancer + Hidden Stockpile/Blasting Station

- This isn't the typical Legion's Landing deck but it has a few uses for a random body and being able to backdoor a ramp spell for 1 mana is excellent if you're building up to 5s and 6s (or Summon the Pack...). I had a few games where I wanted to mid-game Demonic Tutor for a land (a surprisingly common line and one reason I don't hate DT in Cube) and this was a great 'land' with even more added value
- I love Windbrisk Heights but it can be awkward in the decks best able to trigger it as they usually don't have big cards to hit; that's no problem in this deck! Sadly Heights -> Summon the Pack never happened but 2-mana 6/6s or surprise Damnation was just fine
- Barren Moor made an appearance as part of the 'Cycle Land of your choice' card that I run in lieu of Tranquil Thicket/Lonely Sandbar. Those would have languished in a SB while this WB drafter was happy to pick up a free cycle land from an otherwise dead pack; there are no real synergies with it here (Sun Titan, but that's my version of 'pitches to Force') but even so it worked well

- Primal Amulet looked really out of place but it proved much easier than expected to turn it on; it was great to see a card earmarked for URx show up in a spell-light WB deck to good effect! This deck has lots of ways to chain spells: Start // Finish and Lingering Souls by themselves or Entomb for either gets you halfway there, and DT for any of those is 3/4. The reduction effect was useful too: you have to take a turn off to play Amulet but that doesn't telegraph your plays and there are often turns where you have DT or Read the Bones but don't know what you want, so getting a discount later when you do know was sweet. Casting both halves of S//F or Souls, using DT or Read to find and cast Damnation in the same turn was a common play, and it came up a few times that Amulet's -1 set up T5 Clique/Angel, T6/7 Profane Command for 5 to return it once it was killed/countered

By far the best use, though, was:

- Summon the Pack is bonkers and I love it. It's randomness done right: it's usually game-breaking but you can't predict how and opening the pack (flipping the cards one by one is the only way to go) is such a sweat. The cost makes it easy to aim for with any of the weird ramp strategies I support and I can't wait to try it with Mizzix's Mastery too. I thought I had a game won after I resolved Living Death, but he one-upped me by copying Summon the Pack:

(Summon 1: Oracle of Mul Daya, Reyhan, Blade Splicer, Ayli, Phyrexian Metamorph, Flickerwisp, Saffi, Champion of Wits, Rishkar
Summon 2: Grenzo, Walking Ballista, Porcelain Legionnaire)

I had a Carrion Feeder and a Whirler Rogue in play, so we tried to figure out if Metamorph copying Feeder would let him go infinite with Saffi somehow. If I hadn't stolen his Angel of Invention with Sower of Temptation, he could have copied Feeder, loaded up a ton of counters on it, and then dumped them on a 1/1 Walking Ballista to Fireball me! The flashiest play he could have done was do the same thing except make a massive Champion of Wits in response to its trigger to draw 15+ cards. Instead he settled for just making 12 creatures and winning next turn...

(In our third game he won with Summon for Ink-Eyes, Grim Lavamancer, Grim Flayer, Duplicant, Stoneforge Mystic, Noble Hierarch to kill me with Blasting Station...)

And, finally, my baby:

UB Inspiring Dementia (2-1)

This thing was a blast to play! Sac effects, Zombies, artifact combos, and reanimator all came together in the perfect recipe. I picked up Reveillark as well as Daretti II + Goblin Bombardment hoping to splash either but the fixing wasn't there.

- Whirler Rogue is a workhorse. It's amazing by itself in a generic deck but this list used every part of the buffalo: three bodies in one card is great with all of these sac outlets, the artifacts were great for Statuary/Battle, and pushing a massive Carrion Feeder/Flesh Carver through a stalled board was game-winning
- I cut Sower for being one of the generic overpowered blue cards that goes in every Cube; on this run it seemed strong but fair
- Hostage Taker was delightful. Using Villain's cards against them is a reliable source of great games (see below) and recurring it with bounce/blink/reanimation to gain even more value is very strong
- Trading Post did good work but I'd have liked a big artifact to recur with it (GPG/Noxious Gearhulk maybe?)
- Battle looks innocuous but worked well: I used 2 'leftover' mana plus Thopters/Servos and other artifacts to Battle for 5
- Cryptbreaker continues to overperform even in decks with zero Zombies or other synergies. This deck had both but also showed another good use for it. I had several draws with Cryptbreaker and a counterspell, which made Villain's life tricky: if they tried to play around it I could just make more Zombies, otherwise I would get their best spell
- Body Double looking at both graveyards came up a lot, especially for upgrading Necromancer/Mannequin; against the WB potpourri deck I set up Necromancer -> Double as Sun Titan to recur Necromancer and something else every turn. It's great more widely as reanimation that you can Recruit and find with Vessel of Nascency/Grapple with the Past etc
- I got to Phantasmal Image many things but the cutest play was Image -> Mentor, play Borderpost for free, play Capsule
- Marionette Master was the perfect combo finisher for this deck: I went off repeatedly by looping Master multiple times in a turn via Necromancer/Mannequin/Living Death/Body Double/Image

- I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Living Death. It causes more dramatic reversals and memorable wins than any other card and proved that yesterday. Against 4C I cast it to return Glint-Nest Crane, Sidisi's Faithful, Whirler Rogue, Sower of Temptation, and Hostage Taker to his Meren and Tireless Tracker; Sower stole Meren, I took Tireless Tracker hostage, Faithful exploited itself to bounce Crane and let me recast it, Meren gained an experience counter and returned Faithful at EOT.

I then won the second game after putting Living Death on the bottom with Glint-Nest Crane and using Altar of Dementia to mill my whole deck to find and resolve it for lethal, which was even sweeter

Some takeaways:

- These deep and engaging games are possible because you can afford to take a turn off to cast your Primal Amulet, Trading Post, or Mirari's Wake. Speeding up your format further carries some real costs with it
- This session confirmed my thoughts about the sac artifacts above: both Altars and Blasting Station were drafted and included because there was no mana cost gatekeeping but they all played out very differently. My UB deck wasn't ramping into much with Ashnod's Altar and prefers Blasting Station or Spawning Pit while the BW deck would love Ashnod's Altar to fuel Summon the Pack or big Profane Commands but wouldn't care for Altar of Dementia, which shined for me
- I liked all the reanimation here; Animate Dead stealing stuff from opposing yards was cute, as was the Sun Titan synergy. His deck has some T1 Entomb T2 Animate starts but those felt beatable; maybe they wouldn't if the target was something else? I'm more open to the cheap universal reanimation than I was before, but now I have to choose between those and Mannequin/Dread Return/Unburial Rites and so on; all of them are great in their own way, but I can't overload on them. Maybe I can and have that be black's schtick?
- It was refreshing to not have games throttled by planeswalkers. Both Lilianas are excellent but don't bury you in on-board threats or card advantage; Sorin is expensive and flashy enough that you don't lose to it immediately and don't mind when you do eventually

And a lesson that applies for everyone here:

- If you want some emotional spikes in your Cube design, let drafters harness each other's cards. Phantasmal Image, Phyrexian Metamorph, Gonti, Hostage Taker, and Puppeteer Clique were all responsible for some fantastic moments, often with each other; Gonti taking my Image and using it on my Hostage Taker almost let 4C overcome my Living Death, Clique goes berserk by itself and is nuts with Image, and Metamorph acts as a check on anything that's going on.

Cards like these are guaranteed to add new dimensions to gameplay as their effect varies between both games and matches and isn't something you can easily anticipate. I'll find a way to articulate this better but, for now, run these cards. You won't be disappointed.

After this draft I'm very encouraged and I'll do my best to get a current sketch on CubeTutor soon to enable drafts/discussions

 

[inscho]

It's not all that surprising that the aggro deck didn't fair well within that mix of decks. There's a high concentration of tokens, removal, etb, and >2 toughness critters...basically everything aggro hates to see. The deck also seemed to have a pretty fair game plan with no real combo finish...some long term value plans, but nothing to really punch through a stalemate to close out a game.

I love Puppeteer Clique in my cube, glad to see you're having good results out of it as well.

A while ago, I took note of Apprentice Necromancer in one of your old lists, and haven't looked back. I love it and Makeshift Mannequin...especially alongside Sneak Attack.

Inspiring Statuary is a neat card I didn't know existed. That could have some serious game in my cube...you have me thinking about Ashnod's Altar as well now.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Yeah, WB is an aggressive colour pair but usually has more ways to punch damage through or convert obsolete creatures into other resources. This kind of hyper-aggro deck is fairly abnormal. I didn't see his other matches but it didn't sound like the deck itself was outclassed.

I'm glad people are trying Apprentice Necromancer! It's one of those Urza's Block cards that goes overlooked because of all the broken stuff that's going on there, but from the first time I played it I was convinced.

 

[James Stevenson]

Damn, you played in London and I missed it!

 

[Dom Harvey]

Damn, you played in London and I missed it!

argh, didn't realize you were around!

(also, more Notes from the Road please!)


A Monument to WW

Somewhere I went from the typical LGS guy who plays control even (/especially) when it's not good to wanting to assemble elaborate Rube Goldberg machines or just throw 9/9 double striking Scythe Leopards at people. 'Tricky' aggro has become one of my favourite archetypes and I handle that whole theatre of Cube design with it in mind. Other people spice up their aggro decks but this usually takes the form of sacrifice themes in black or narrow tribal synergies while the classic white weenie deck goes overlooked. White often seems less exciting or diverse than other colours but it's very good at what it does, and it's been doing this for 25 years.

Before lolloping down various rabbit holes, let's look at why white aggro has the hallmarks of a healthy aggro deck (as I define it, at least):

- White has more - and more versatile - 1-drops than any other colour; you can fill your entire white section with Savannah Lions and friends but, unlike red, you don't have to if you want aggro to work. Kytheon gives you planeswalker upside on a 1-drop, Thraben Inspector goes in literally any white deck without complaint, Benevolent Bodyguard ably protects more important cards (and its helicopter Mother of Runes is an important card in its own right), while Figure of Destiny and Student of Warfare are game-changers on Turn 1 and Turn 10 alike.

- Disruption stapled to creatures is both stronger and 'fairer' (as it's easier to remove and forces both players to consider sequencing more carefully), and white has the best of the bunch.

- Anthems in white along with a high density of solid token makers means that you can shift modes by going wide instead of tall; knowing when and how to do this is crucial in close games

- There are enough resilient threats that you can compete with midrange and control decks throughout the game, and enough instants and flash threats that Villain always has to be on their toes

And you can specialize in whatever subthemes take your fancy; recent discussion here has centred around:



These are fun build-arounds whose power is evident as soon as you play with them, but as a designer they lead you on this great choose-your-own-adventure story. Your first instinct is to look for anything that loops itself. The standouts are Kor Skyfisher and Stonecloaker; Stonecloaker is a useful check on GY recursion and a trick that's tough to play around, among other things. If you pack Squadron Hawks together, Monument happily goes off with those. If you're bouncing + replaying cards, you naturally want ETB effects; the Blink deck is already well-known, but consider cards like Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Genesis Chamber, and the Soul Warden family as payoffs as well as Bygone Bishop/Mentor of the Meek. Note ETBs/LTBs that chain others like Flickerwisp/Restoration Angel/Reveillark/Karmic Guide and Recruiter of the Guard. Skyfisher/Flickerwisp can return anything, so artifacts/enchantments/lands with ETBs suddenly get a look-in: notably, Windbrisk Heights, Legion's Landing, Journey to Nowhere/Oblivion Ring, living weapon (Flayer Husk/Mortarpod/Bonehoard/Batterskull), Tangle Wire. With enough artifacts, Glint Hawk becomes great; and with enough non-creatures, you now have extra prowess triggers for Seeker of the Way/Monastery Mentor and the like. Most of those make or look for creatures so you're pushed even further towards tokens (and maybe outlandish stuff like Crovax, Ascendant Hero), which suggests Battalion (and the stolen valour squad of Landing/Heights/Kytheon)...

By exploring just some of these angles you end up with a web of interactions grafted onto a functional aggro deck:

 

[Dom Harvey]

Working off this list for now, it contains all the ideas colliding with each other in my head so it's unfocused atm but give me some drafts if you're so inclined (read the note!)

 

[Dom Harvey]

You can't spell 'scrubbed out of a GP' without 'Cube'

Firstly, one of the UK's best players has a Bant Cube that I watched being drafted the day before; someone drafted a disgusting WG Lands deck so I committed myself to forcing an even more disgusting one when I had the chance:

Spoiler: WG Lands

I went undefeated with this beauty (including vs a counter-heavy control deck that should be a terrible matchup) and forced Constant Mists to be cut on power level; mission accomplished?

Highlights:
- Using Constant Mists to Fog for ~7 turns, playing Crucible and then Titania so that every Mists turn generated a 5/3, then beating my opponent's plan to force the draw vs my Seasons Past with White Sun's Zenith by casting Mists 5 times at the end of their turn and ultimating Garruk to attack for >100
- Beating the control deck with zero cards in my library by transforming into a weird landfall aggro deck featuring Steel Leef Champion and 8-mana Elder Deep-Fiend
- Setting up a Zuran Orb + Splendid Reclamation + Seasons Past loop to slowly win by decking while gaining >30 life a turn


For my Cube, I managed the miracle of assembling a pod of 6 and decided to honour that with this:

Spoiler: WR Unstable Miracles

Like last time I just included everything to test more things out but won both my rounds despite the bloated deck. I took Split Screen early and determined to build around it, then picked up some generic control cards before Teshar (by far the card I'm most excited about from Dominaria!) distracted me with its siren song. That didn't pan out (in deckbuilding I tried a build that could Recruiter of the Guard for Teshar and then return Recruiter for more stuff but there wasn't much more to get) so I stuck with control and ended up with this... WR Un-themed Miracle control deck?! The touch of blue contributed a bit but wasn't strictly necessary and it was great to see a WR Control deck not just exist but perform well without needing planeswalkers.

Highlights:
- I cast Balance as my fourth spell for Amulet, Villain cast Into the Roil to stop it flipping so I was able to Helix my own Baral in response to flip Amulet into a land to protect from Roil and ensure Balance would kill his Keiga
- Floating Terminus and Bonfire on two decks while selecting my draws from the other two with Split Screen
- The Grand Calcutron and Topsy Turvy being in play at any point (and almost together until I realized how bad that is...)
- Winning with exactly enough cards in my (one) library to miracle + copy Bonfire with Primal Wellspring, Codex Shredder back the Bonfire and flip Top for Brainstorm to put it back, then miracle + copy Bonfire again
- Calling a judge to check how Calcutron actually works (the L2 who is probably giving me my judge test answered and got it wrong!)

Notes:
- Eternal Dragon was solid against both of my grindy opponents; returning it and playing it later felt like a solid plan often enough, which was really nice to see. In a deck with few ways to close out the game, Dragon was the old-school finisher it was designed to be: you cash it in for some value early and forget about it, then it returns when needed to seal the deal
- Split Screen's card selection is a little slow by itself but it was fantastic in conjunction with Top, Shredder, Scroll Rack, any cantrip... it's hard to conceptualize how good it is without seeing it in action but it earned its keep for me
- Decks like this need effects like Unexpectedly Absent and it felt more situationally powerful but also more interesting for both sides than just another O-Ring
- Opposing planeswalkers felt tough - I had to jump through lots of hoops to answer Tezzeret AoB - and if I had to choose between decks like this being viable or planeswalkers this wins in a landslide. I'm not certain that I do, but I'll keep it in mind. It's just so hard to justify some of the cuter card advantage engines, especially those that require mana, when planeswalkers effectively give you cards for free every turn
- Primal Amulet still offers a delightful subgame with great rewards
- I never got to live the Devastating Dreams + Calcutron dream, which truly is devastating but also a bit of a pipe


(the rest of these decks were 40 cards but I'm including all of the relevant cards from the pool and not just whatever the final 40 was)

Spoiler: WG Creature Synergy

A fairly normal build of the WGx creature synergy deck that's always drafted; no infinite combos here but enough silliness. I love a creature deck that can support Wrath!

Spoiler: BG Survival/Living Death

More cool creature interactions topped off with the Survival + Living Death combo straight out of 1998. You see a few flavours of BG here - counters, sac, graveyard - and I'm not sure how this deck *should* be built, but I like that it can show off different themes while feeling cohesive

Spoiler: BR Sac

I love a creature deck that can support Wrath Damnation! There's a ton of overlap between BR sac and BR discard/graveyard stuff so I probably don't need as much of each.

Spoiler: UBR Value

This is the kind of generic but multilayered midrange deck that a Cube needs as a default option for less deranged players and a litmus test for how well the outlandish stuff is doing. It seemed like this deck was easy enough to draft but not dominating, which is a good sign; I was surprised by how well my contraption held up against it. It's worth noting that there are incidentally a lot of token makers in this deck; token spam comes up a lot, to no complaints so far but I want to check it a bit

Spoiler: 4C Stuff

There's always someone who takes the fixing first and then figures it out from there; our usual suspect wasn't here, but his replacement made a valiant effort. I'm not sure what's going on here except that putting Cranial Plating on an endless stream of Plants (via Zuran Orb + Crucible + Khalni Garden) and Goats is surprisingly annoying!

All in all, everyone seemed really happy with how their decks and matches turned out. A few final notes:
- I'm still not sure what I want blue to do. Artifacts and spells matter are both appealing but I don't know if they can coexist peacefully
- Because I'd separated the core of my Cube from the experimental stuff, I decided to seed the latter into each pack to maintain consistency while still giving the weird cards a chance to shine. I'd seen the idea floated before and hadn't considered it much until I backed into it again here, but it worked well AFAICT and it's worth exploring as a standard thing (shouldn't be too hard with stickers or similar). If only there was a way to do this on CubeTutor!
- I strongly encourage you all again to try out some of the Un-cards; the variety to space consumed ratio can't be beat

 

[James Stevenson]

Highlights:
- I cast Balance as my fourth spell for Amulet, Villain cast Into the Roil to stop it flipping so I was able to Helix my own Baral in response to flip Amulet into a land to protect from Roil and ensure Balance would kill his Keiga

It might kill the fun of writing your posts, but card tags would really help me... I'm out of date and I have no idea what this sentence means.

edit: wait, actually I know most of these cards. I thought "villain" was a card. never mind

 

[Chris Taylor]

God I gotta do a writeup like this. Loved reading it man, even if all this gameplay makes me wrench
(Constant mists? How did you not see that coming? )

 

[Dom Harvey]

I did, that's why I picked it! I'm tempted to try it again in my own Cube though, so maybe that taught me nothing

 

[Kirblinx]

God I gotta do a writeup like this. Loved reading it man, even if all this gameplay makes me wrench
(Constant mists? How did you not see that coming? )

Yeah, I was going to do a post about GP Sydney as well on my blog, but I take forever to write posts at the best of times, and with the amount I wanted to cram into it I just gave up.

If I did any cubing I would feel more inclined to post it, but I always struggle to be concise in what I want to get across and it not take me 2 days to write it :\

It would mostly be just me saying I won turn 4 with Ad Nauseum a lot in side events and failing everything else, which wouldn't be too exciting to read.

 

[James Stevenson]

I cast Balance as my fourth spell for Amulet, Villain cast Into the Roil to stop it flipping so I was able to Helix my own Baral in response to flip Amulet into a land to protect from Roil and ensure Balance would kill his Keiga

Wait, this is awesome

 

[Aston]

Is the Grand Calculatron good? Fun? What does it actually do

 

[Chris Taylor]

Is the Grand Calculatron good? Fun? What does it actually do

Artifact
Each player draws up to 5 at the end of their turn
Triple the length of the current magic game

 

[Aston]

Well I like Magic so three times as much Magic must be three times as fun!

 

[Dom Harvey]

Is the Grand Calculatron good? Fun? What does it actually do

It's a great tool for any deck that can empty its hand quickly for whatever reason or just wants to see more cards, especially against slower decks that are good at outgrinding you by playing one big spell a turn. It gives both players perfect information but not in a way that kills the fun or tension ala Gitaxian Probe; it creates these cool subgames like 'I know they want to have access to removal so I'll put this weaker creature first and force them to waste it on that' and every draw forces an important decision.

Suppose you're on the play with a Wu Aggro deck against control:

T1 land, 1-drop (5 cards)
T2 draw (6), land, Calcutron (4), EOT draw a card (5)
T3 land (4), some number of cards - ideally 2-drop + 1-drop or similar (2/3), EOT draw 3/2 cards (5)

So now you've drawn at least 2 cards and put Villain in an awkward spot: if they draw Counterspell, they either have to put it at the front of their program - where you can strand it there by not playing anything - or leave it inaccessible somewhere else. Even if they clean up the first wave with a sweeper, you know it's coming and can play around it as you see fit before reloading with all the extra cards Calcutron gave you

It's also great in decks that can remove it somehow - you can use it as a 2-mana draw spell that also gives you an incidental benefit from your Greater Gargadon or similar.

It has a unique, interesting effect on the game and a very high ceiling for decks that want it