Eldrazi Domain Cube

[landofMordor]

I'm unsure of how many blanket 'Destroy Target Creature' effects you want if you want the slow decks to have a chance.

There are a few intentionally awkward board wipes in the list, but maybe they are too awkward?

For the blade cycle, I feel like they want a greater density of multicolor cards than currently exists. Especially at 3-drop, or 1CD permanents.

Yeah, I think the removal issue can be mitigated by tuning the format's removal. In my peasant list (https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/barad_dur) I have tuned the removal to do 2 things: 1) provide decks with ways to combat a Voltron'd up Heroic creature, and 2) do so without netting a free X-for-1. Stuff like Bone Splinters and Unsummon allow decks to fight through Auras without making Auras card disadvantage.

I think a similar thing could be done here. I hear you saying you want to have removal which is at its best against small creatures (or early game), while not netting too much tempo adv vs. big ol' Baneslayers. I'd imagine stuff like Banefire to mesh well with this goal (except for maybe the whole Fireball-to-the-face mode). Another could be Disfigure or Mire's Grasp, which are clean 1-for-1s against a Shardblade, but incur some combat risk to trade vs. a bigger creature. And of course, burn like Shock, Flame Slash, Strafe, Sunlance, etc. fits this bill.

Shardblades: The nice thing about a lower power level is that stuff like Nyp Gwyllion might be borderline playable on its own merits, and higher-MV stuff like Silverquill Pledgemage gets even better. I'd be tempted to cull any bread-and-butter monocolor creatures like Gore-House Chainwalker and replace them with hybrids... but idk

 

[Jason Waddell]

I agree about Gorehouse. It is possible that I'm trying to push too many minor themes, and that the proliferate package for example is taking away from the overall focus of the set.

It's a hard question to answer.

 

[Jason Waddell]

After some games today, I feel like either some of the ramp spells should be toned down, or some of the high-cost Eldrazi could stand to be Tier 2 Eldrazi. Will need to test more though.

 

[Zoss]

FWIW, I was on the mono-nongreen aggro plan and passed the chainwalker in favor of a Dryard Militant on P7. Take that data point as you will.

I also didn't see much upside to working with either the Elemental or the proliferate packages. They seem super slow/delicate in comparison with ramp or aggro or even just midrange.

 

[Jason Waddell]

For the Proliferate package, would a card like Evolution Sage sway you?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Options for Tier 2 Eldrazi:

 

[Jason Waddell]

Anybody have any favorite Tier 2 recursive creatures?

 

[ravnic]

Stuff like these?

 

[Zoss]

For the Proliferate package, would a card like Evolution Sage sway you?

Evolution Sage
Flux Channeler
Martyr for the Cause
Huatli's Raptor

Funnily enough, I was thinking of the WAR proliferate cards when I typed that up! It may have been a hot mess of a set for standard, but I think that WAR is secretly one of the top five draft sets from the last five years.

 

[japahn]

I think that WAR is secretly one of the top five draft sets from the last five years.

Secretly? I think War of the Spark is by consensus one of the best in the fast 5 years.

In 2016-2021, I think the best regarded draft sets are Eldritch Moon, Hour of Devastation, War of the Spark, Dominaria, and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths. I personally liked Kaladesh, Ixalan, Hour of Devastation, Dominaria, Kaldheim, which shows either how weird I am or, more likely, the periods in which I actually had time to play Magic.

 

[Zoss]

Oh, I'm taking a much broader view than you are by including the supplementary sets, which each knocked it out of the park. Mystery Boosters and Modern Horizons 1 are two of the greatest draft experiences of all time (so far) (IMO). Battlebond pushed the limits of draft in a great way, and Jumpstart gets an honorable mention for creating an entirely new format in a fairly entertaining way. And then--Unstable. What's more to say about Unstable? That's five sets that outrank War as a draft for me right there.



And agreed on Hour, Dominaria, Ikoria, and Kaldheim all being all-time greats. Z3ndikar was pretty good too, though that's mostly due to having the best MDFCs by a country mile, and Rivals of Ixalan gets a prize for saving an awful draft experience. The last few core sets have also been surprisingly deep. Add these up and suddenly War starts to feel a little overlooked, at least in terms of limited if not popularity.

 

[ravnic]

You guys liked Ikoria? I always thought the general opinion would be, that it sucked. It had the really stupid and super dominant cycling deck. It felt more bomb heavy too, with the companions and obnoxious rares like Crystalline Giant or Luminous Broodmoth. Another big issue was, that all the creatures hit so hard, that you got on the backfood SO quickly.

I think the premier sets I enjoyed the most during the last ~5 years were those:

Throne of Eldraine
Kaldheim
War of the Spark
Magic 2021

The others I either didn't draft enough to judge (DOM) or didn't like enough (THB).

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Yeah, from my understanding of it Ikoria wasn't all that well liked after the first week (and especially after the companion rules change) because 4-color cycling ended up being way better than almost any mutate pile or humans deck one could generally muster. A medium cycling deck could clear out most good non-cycling decks provided it had a good pilot.

My favorite drafts since Khans (in order of release) have been:
2X Eldritch Moon 1x Shadows Over Innistrad (This set got me back into tournament Magic after I swore of buying sealed product... during Oath of the Gatewatch ).
2X Hour of Devastation 1x Amonkhet.
3X Dominaria
4X Battlebond (I heard other people didn't like this set, I enjoyed it when I drafted it with my buddies from Scouts).
3X Guilds of Ravnica
3X Ravnica Allegiance
3X War of the Spark
3X Modern Horizons
3X Throne of Eldraine
3X Theros: Beyond Death
3X Kaldheim (This set really clicked with me for some reason, but I don't think it was the most fun experience of this bunch).
3X Strixhaven (I think).

 

[Jason Waddell]

I kind of forgot about the Evoke-Evolve interactions I put into the cube until they happened naturally mid-game against Kirblinx. Cloudfin Raptor got swole in a hurry.

 

[Zoss]

Guess who forgot about the cycling deck...


But, point of the matter, pretty much everything has been stellar to draft over the last five years. I'd even take the less-good ones (Ixalan, Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance) over almost anything but the best of the previous five, let alone ten. We even forgot Eldraine, which is fantastic! This means that even pretty good stuff is going to be overlooked, like WAR.

 

[Rowan_CB]

Hold up, I have to step in and defend my boo, Ikoria.

The issues with the cycling deck were overstated. Yes, there were a couple of weeks at the very beginning of the format when people could get hooked up with ridiculous cycling decks, but by the time the format was even middle-aged those decks rarely came together, and it was in fact best to ignore it unless it fell into your lap because people couldn't help but fight over it.

Companion was a dope limited mechanic that seeded 10 unique build-arounds that would all completely change how you navigated a draft.

That format was so deep with so many viable decks.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Design notes:

Greatly increasing multicolor density to make the blades feel less isolated.
Cutting all mono-color walkers. Bringing in weak hybrid walkers.
Cutting lots of mono-color stuff in general, especially things that are not that critical to the main themes.
Testing some tri-color charms that have answers to artifacts and enchantments.

I'm searching for the perfect recurring phoenix for this format.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/eldrazidomain

 

[Modin]

I'm searching for the perfect recurring phoenix for this format.

Don't know about the format specifically, but hasn't it always been...

 

[Jason Waddell]

Testing

Don't know about the format specifically, but hasn't it always been...

For some reason I was looking at

 

[Jason Waddell]

Random Maybeboard Dump: Many are probably too powerful.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hmm, all the Strixhaven tokens are multicolor. I wonder if something can be done with those. Are any of these usable...

 

[Jason Waddell]

 

[japahn]

Resculpt is terrible. If it was in an eldrazi spawn color, I think it might be a consideration, but in blue, probably not.

Multiple Choice is generically good, but very generic and you almost cast it for "all of the above". Don't like the card.

Extus, Oriq Overlord seems ok, but I'm not going to bother reading the other side (which is probably what you're talking about, since side A doesn't make tokens), and I don't think may people will.

Umbral Juke is sweet IMO, almost always one mode is relevant, but it might be below your power band, especially with the sac creatures and tokens going around.

Galazeth Prismari seems good. It seems to point towards a spells deck in UR, which I don't think is a supported archetype, but UR is often about spells anyway and it doesn't look out of place. Do note it's a lot better than the Eldrazi Spawn makers, though.

Professor of Zoomancy seems a bit out of place. You make the format more about tokens without pushing the initial goal of "what if Eldrazi Spawn and Scions are the center of a format". Ditto for Sedgemoor Witch, except it's just more good stuffy.

Serpentine Curve definitely points towards a spells deck. It might be a cool archetype to support here. I like the card, as it scales with the game and deciding when to pull the trigger is an interesting decision.

Tend the Pests also points towards "token gummed up boards", but because of the big eldrazi and evoke elementals, it's intriguing. I like it.

Valentin, Dean of the Vein is too much text. I've already read this card a few times, I don't want to do it again. But again, tokens that don't seem to blend with the cube.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I feel like maybe I have too many themes to actually support Populate, and/or not enough room for support/glue cards. Will keep an eye on it.

 

[Jason Waddell]

How dumb is this package: