General Draft Subgames

Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

I was drafting my cube on cubetutor as well as some other people's cubes recently and found a stark contrast between my excitement in drafting my own stuff and getting to explore other people's cubes. Probably this has to do me knowing my own cube inside out, but it also got me thinking about sub games during drafting. I don't remember who it was who said it but I drafted a soulflayer deck today and had tons of fun looking for really juicy soulflayer targets as well as actually making a proper deck come together.

I want to get more cards like that in my cube, that adds some tensions to the picks in making you wonder if you'll get more pieces for this interaction you've got going. Maybe it's a matter of running more explicit themes? Or are there some cards that just scream "draft around me"? Does tribal sort of fit into this if it's done tastefully?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
James Stevenson said:
People mention Soulflayer on here, but I really wonder if its any good. Any experiences?
Click to expand...

He's been great, the single black mana in his cost is super sweet, and the 5th toughness puts him out of reach of 99% of red removal and many creatures far up the curve. The drawing cards ability might not seem super great, but given that it's cube, anything you get back is usually already good (Eg: doom blade) or bad by you being in a good situation (Duress)
Overall I like it, interesting card. Foil is going to be expensive though, since he's seeing so much modern and legacy play
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Yeah , come to think of it, he's been a house over here as well. I had to choose between him and tasigur, the golden fang, but tasigur was just weak. Doesn't pass the shock + snapcaster test, costs at least 2, which is a lot for a 4/4 these days, and you have to draft weirdly to make him good. Plus, what are those weird half-black-half-green mana smybols? Kind of a confusing way to say 2GGBB. Which is a lot.
 
MCMcEmcee

MCMcEmcee

Chris Taylor said:
He's been great, the single black mana in his cost is super sweet, and the 5th toughness puts him out of reach of 99% of red removal and many creatures far up the curve. The drawing cards ability might not seem super great, but given that it's cube, anything you get back is usually already good (Eg: doom blade) or bad by you being in a good situation (Duress)
Overall I like it, interesting card. Foil is going to be expensive though, since he's seeing so much modern and legacy play
Click to expand...

That's Tasigur, the Golden Fang, not Soulflayer.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I haven't tried soulflayer so might be wrong, but he looks like a bag-o-conflic to me. I don't want to exile my Akroma to this guy in reanimator. Might as well have Akroma. In an aggressive deck, he probably won't have a lot of keywords (though maybe he will - could be underestimating how many keywords are on typical aggressive dudes). If I'm doing pod or self mill, I usually run things that let me get dudes back in play. Living Death or Genesis, dudes I can cast from the yard, etc. I don't really want to exile creatures as a general rule. I want to delve lands and spent non-creature spells typically. Not sure how others tend to run those decks though.

I don't know. I think I'd rather just have Tombstalker. Bigger, comes with flying no matter what. Doesn't help that Tasigur exits either since that card it silly good. If you only want one delve black creature, that's the one I'd go with for sure (and currently the only one I'm running).
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist



Is this possibly the most successful draft time subgame card most of us run? I'm running two so that might even add another layer to it; "am I gonna get the second pod?" "how's my curve looking?"
 
GenericZero

GenericZero

Alfonzo Bonzo said:


Draft around card? As in draft creatures?
Click to expand...

I dislike it's ability to lock opponents out of games. I don't care how much some argue that "you need a winning board position to get to that point in the first place." It's just busted and unfun. If you were gonna run this effect, I'd go with the gold Selesnya version. It's fair and the effect works well in those colors. It works hand in hand with tokens, enchantments, some weird lower powered Bant/Abzan exalted theme, and G/W good stuff. I don't know if the effect is any more fun, but it's the best suggestion I've got.

INB4 thread derailment discussing the validity of a Bant/Abzan exalted theme in lower powered cubes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top