Eric Chan's Modern cube (405)

Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
A lot of times I peeked over at my graveyard, I had something like six cards there. As games went long, that number went up, well into the double digits. I think I only resolved Ancestral Vision once or twice on the evening, which is about my running average over the years, as the game often ends with it sitting on one of its four suspend counters. Meanwhile, had I pulled Treasure Cruise every time I drew Visions, I think I could've cast it in at least three situations for {1}{U} or just {U}.

Vision is still the undisputed better play on turn one. But I think I like Cruise better on almost any other turn.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Grillo_Parlante said:
Is that from an actual draft? If so, thats a good sign, as you are running the absolute limit imo for delver flips.

This was my go at it, much more aggro-control:

U/R/w Delver aggro control from CubeTutor.com











Had an entreat also, really would have liked to have had a few X/W duals so I could run it, or a few more spells to run over creatures. This is pretty good threat density though, and can be reasonably controlling if it needs to shift roles.
Click to expand...

That is possibly the most ambitious spectral procession I've ever seen.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Never really been a huge fan of it, to be honest. It's better in higher power lists, which tend to have more cards with powerful enter-the-battlefield effects - see Jason's double Kitchen Finks and double Shriekmaw - and I don't want to warp my cube in that fashion.

I tried triple Birthing Pod for a draft or two, actually, and it didn't go over that great with my playgroup at the time, so that was another influencing factor.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, people still fight over pod in my local group. But I don't see it as absolutely essential. It's just one of the more unique and fitting build-around cards to hit a draft environment, and is like, 0% poisonous.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
Yeah, people still fight over pod in my local group. But I don't see it as absolutely essential. It's just one of the more unique and fitting build-around cards to hit a draft environment, and is like, 0% poisonous.
Click to expand...

Do you have a spells matter theme going on? I'm finding there's an annoying design tension between the two cards.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Chris Taylor said:
Do you have a spells matter theme going on? I'm finding there's an annoying design tension between the two cards.
Click to expand...

I have double Delver + Augur + Young Pyromancer, if you count that as a theme. Also like 6 Brainstorms. I think there's enough room for both, it's mostly on the drafters to make sure they have a sufficient density of necessary card-types to make their 23 non-land-card deck operate. Unless your card densities are really weird, this shouldn't be too much of an issue. I don't really design for it in any way.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
couple of highlights from my last cube update

---->

it was pointed out to me by multiple drafters that while Dictate of Heliod isn't necessarily too powerful for my list, it's very uninteractive. it's for the same reason that i removed Eldrazi Monument a while back. Goldmane may or may not be better than Dictate, but at least can be attacked, and Sublime allows the "going wide" deck to have another angle of attack

---->

speaking of going wide! the giant pack of hawks really wasn't cutting it. without swords to strap on, they were, in the words of one of my players, the "world's slowest Lingering Souls". despite being part of the winning deck last week, they were far and away the weakest part of that deck. i'm going to try a couple of instant speed token makers, to give the archetype a little more play, and also see if i can stretch the theme out to green

---->

okay you people were right here, Oppressive Rays is awful

nothing ---->

blue needs more (good) counters

---->

not a one-to-one mapping in terms of colour pairs, i know, but this is riptide lab! :cool: i seem to be the only person in the world who drafts or plays Persecution, so as much as i love it, maybe it's become something of a pet card. i'm still not sure if Hussar is a thing or not, but it probably leans too far on the combo end of the spectrum to be cubeable. Selesnya Charm has been both capable and flexible in the last two drafts, so I'm trying out its narrower cousin again, Boros Charm, bringing me up to three guild charms total. lastly, i didn't believe UG tempo-ish, counter-light decks existed here, but apparently they do, so Shardless gets another shot

--->

standard reminded me that mass removal in artifact form can be usuable, and i think O-Stone is more playable than Perilous Vault. Obelisk was a neat idea, but no one came within forty feet of it in months
 
Lucre

Lucre

Yeah I like some of this going wide support but I will remind you that it's wise to keep in mind how many your non creature slots are for only the dedicated creature decks because the control decks etc will find those cards about as uninteresting as more champions and those sections are way more likely to be balanced by card type than by effect or what decks want them. Just a thought!

I'm completely on the side if maxing out on 2cc soft counters before going heavy on 3cc hard unless you are making targeted decisions.

I think going wide might be harder without the raw birds but I'm always happy to see token instants! I can't wait to snapcaster my way into an army! Wooooooo
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I approve of the squad hawk changes :p (Not gonna say it)
I love the odd instant speed token maker if only for mucking up combat math, but also if you have any prowress guys, this makes them much nicer.

I've recently tried opressive rays as a method of toning down my removal, but I swapped it to sunlance (a card I know you recommend) after a few akward games with young pyromancer (Damn him being the one spells matter card that doesn't say noncreature in my list) and it's done well.
Have you thought of double sunlance?
 
Lucre

Lucre

Eric, old pal, I don't want to seem too opportunistic, but I feel like we've entered an era where my spell velocity and graveyard loving advice can hold the most sway and I'd love to have a chance to talk to you about your environment again. I really like it's speed and how deep the oppertunities are to limit it so I imagine delve's potential to be fun is probably best achieved in modern cube etc.

And I hope we can chat online because in person cubing comes first right bro?
 
Lucre

Lucre

I worry about your huge counterspell cut. Has control and tempo gotten out of control of late? Do you prefer people to be able to have their fun and not play around disruption so much? I also often liked them in your cube as a reliable way for decks to mitigate the card advantage inherent in value guys which can be really hard sometimes because usually the control decks I do play have trouble keeping up with cards because they usually rely heavily on synergies or like returning investments.

How are souls so far? How has judge's familiar been performing?
Have you considered the new black planeswalker?
You gotta tell me whats going on with that illusory angel, do you feel like it's a card that non tempo/aggro decks want?
Is wear tear good? Have people just not caught on?
I'm sad you didn't like frenzied goblin thats an old fave of mine.

I will really miss arena, I know black pays a lot of life but it's like a real cross archetype card that I feel like is hard to replace and really incentivizes a broader # of black decks.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I moved your post to the right thread.

Did you read that auto-generated cubetutor change list to the end? I just changed the counterspell list around - there should be the same total number as before. The issue is that the quartet of Rune Snags were really underperforming, so despite being a pet card, I had to face reality. I even threw in a second Condescend, like you suggested all those months ago!
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Eric Chan said:
I moved your post to the right thread.

Did you read that auto-generated cubetutor change list to the end? I just changed the counterspell list around - there should be the same total number as before. The issue is that the quartet of Rune Snags were really underperforming, so despite being a pet card, I had to face reality. I even threw in a second Condescend, like you suggested all those months ago!
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan to me mate.

Is 2 pods the right ammount for a 360 list? I know it's a niche thing, but how many does one want in a deck? I'm a little out of touch on this subject since my friends basically refuse to pod.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Yeah, same. It hasn't caught on at all here, because I'm not overloading on the ETB persist guys like Kitchen Finks or Shriekmaw. I started off with three, but when I drafted a decent GU midrange shell for Pods and found I still didn't want to maindeck any, I started becoming a little skeptical. I'm down to two now, but I wouldn't be surprised if the right number is zero - which is what I've had for a few years before this recent experiment.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Eric Chan said:
Yeah, same. It hasn't caught on at all here, because I'm not overloading on the ETB persist guys like Kitchen Finks or Shriekmaw. I started off with three, but when I drafted a decent GU midrange shell for Pods and found I still didn't want to maindeck any, I started becoming a little skeptical. I'm down to two now, but I wouldn't be surprised if the right number is zero - which is what I've had for a few years before this recent experiment.
Click to expand...
I dunno. Every now and again I think I should remove the pods or survival of the fittest, someone comes along and destroys us with them :p

some notes:
  • The conflicting aims of pod and prowess is real sad
  • I keep telling myself pod is a horrible deck to play in 4 person drafts. Then again, you're almost guaranteed to get all the pods you need since nobody else cares, but is that enough?
  • Nobody believes you can build a mediocre pod deck. Every person I've seen either has the absolute nuts with 3 pods and the whole list dripping with synergy, or picked up 2 and failed to build a decent curve. Maybe the trick is to show everyone your picks so you can lay them out curve wise like on modo?
  • Having pods gives more life to sweet cards like phyrexian revoker or squelch/stifle that otherwise might be too narrow.
  • I still think it's basically the most interesting thing you can make a green deck do.
I think I'm keeping them, but having my thoughts on the page helps :)
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Patch notes! Coming in:



Trying out that Gruul Wildfire + Land Destruction theme from the thread Rasmus started. Who knows if it'll be a thing or not, but it can't be worse than the RG non-themes I've had until now. The power level of this cube is low enough now that it won't be as embarrassing as it would've been a year ago.

Also increasing the sacrifice theme a bit in red.
 
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