Eric Chan's Modern cube (405)

CML

CML

Contributor
you can just toss in champ and mayor into most aggro decks, they're good creatures with some upside for being 'on-theme'

i wouldn't consider running midnight haunting ever given my "lower the curve" initiative, doomed traveler is just pretty good though. the whole point of human tribal is that a) the cards are good by themselves b) you were going to include them anyway c) so it's not really tribal.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I wish Human tribal had a bit more bite to it. I don't think it really enhances the drafting dynamic currently.
 
Lucre

Lucre

I was tooling around on cube tutor the other day in GR/something and reluctantly took a mayor mid pack. I was surprised while putting the dumb thing together how many of my red 2 drops and midranged guys were humans!

I think they might be better than I thought. It feels bad though. I'm not sure why. Maybe champion doesn't feel like enough? Probably a cube dependent thing.

On the subject of Zealous Conscripts, I love that card in red midranged and I wish that red green midranged was more of a deck in non-powered cubes. Also more ways to sac threatened stuff is exactly what I always wanted ever.

Modern seems like it'd be an incredibly fun format online. Probably much more reasonably priced.
 
Lucre

Lucre

Yeah, it's a regret I'll probably never get to play with your cube. I think it's why I had such critical first reaction to the eldrazi dominion because I was worried it was consuming your first one and I was so excited about it from the first two articles I read.

I have too many friends in Germany now so I might end up visiting them within a year, if I find myself going by way of france I might have to bother you to coordinate an opportunity to get in on one of your nights and see these mythical drinking establishments / card shops. I'll warn you, I'm like, really annoying.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Lucre said:
Yeah, it's a regret I'll probably never get to play with your cube. I think it's why I had such critical first reaction to the eldrazi dominion because I was worried it was consuming your first one and I was so excited about it from the first two articles I read.

I have too many friends in Germany now so I might end up visiting them within a year, if I find myself going by way of france I might have to bother you to coordinate an opportunity to get in on one of your nights and see these mythical drinking establishments / card shops. I'll warn you, I'm like, really annoying.
Click to expand...

Or let me know if you're in Belgium... :)
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Yeah but one must admit that the Xathrid Necromancer is sweet, well, kind of, I mean ...

I think I attribute Humans being boring compared to Elves or Goblins to NWO
 
Lucre

Lucre

Eric, honey, there are cards I miss.

For one, I don't like that we can no longer draft your thragtusk + unburial deck.
 
Lucre

Lucre

Some thoughts I discussed yester, for those less familiar with the joys of threshold and terravore decks:
cephalid%20coliseum.jpg


They really never saw Dredge decks coming eh?
I like this next one! It saves a guy, and wins combat and deals tonnes of damage and is like having two cards in one!

centaur%20garden.jpg




barbarian%20ring.jpg




cabal%20pit.jpg


It's like a bad version of the red one!
I'm not even going to show you the white one because it gains life but does damage to you whenever you want to use it.

141.jpg


Oh baby, poppa like!

323.jpg


I'm confused about this one, but it seems like the sort of thing a deck might like to be able to take in a post-draft-draft
Tutor up this non basic land to get access to your non basic land recursion strategy!


Blasted%20Landscape.full.jpg


I love me some colourless cycling!
Here's an awful idea:

Terrain%20Generator.full.jpg


I might have to Sharpie(TM) out a word on that one for you.

Not really for land plans, but I thought it might work for your attrition decks:

325.jpg
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
anotak said:
http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/25927

I tried something out against the bots. Picked up some white cards in the hopes of getting unburial but I missed it. Also didn't see enough fetches to justify the life from the loam unfortunately even though that's one of my favorite cards.
Click to expand...

This is eerily similar to what I drafted in real life last night. In an actual draft, you'd get at least a couple of fetches, as there are now twenty in the cube, so your Loam would've been live. And even without the Rites, I'd probably still run your two white duals and throw in the Condemn, Sunlance, and Wall of Omens. Can't win without being a little greedy!
 
Lucre

Lucre

At the risk of making green more fatty centric I can't help but wonder about salvage a d it's like and ask what cards does green have that help it fill a graveyard and what cards can a green cuber be excited about having in the yard in a modern format.

Is this something not worth focusing on?
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Yeah, I've been having text conversations with both you and Calvin over the last couple days on that topic exactly: green's identity in cube. It's come all the way back around now, but green is basically the new black: it sucks, and it's not obvious how to fix it.

Right now in my cube, green can ramp. It can ramp pretty darn well, and invite most of the other four colours to the party while it's at it. But aside from that, green doesn't do much of anything else. Green aggro is laughable, green graveyard strategies are few and far between, and green control isn't really a thing. Perhaps worst of all, green is not a colour that most decks are looking to splash. It works fine as a base colour for the aforementioned ramp decks, but your heavy blue deck isn't looking to dip its toe into green.

Are these things fixable? I'm not sure. I have some ideas for each archetype, but I don't know if any of them will pan out. Below are my thoughts and open questions.

Green Aggro
Gruul Ponza
  • Maybe a different direction to take green aggro is to make the GR archetype focus on land destruction. Turn one Birds into turn two Molten Rain is no joke. Calvin's drafted it once, ever, and it was a riot!
  • Good green land destruction spells: Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Acidic Slime
    • I think that's it. Again, worth doubling up on..? Need to provide drafters with a reason to pair red with green for their land destruction needs, other than turn one accelerator.
Green Reanimation
  • These currently resemble the Junk Rites decks of Standard - about half reanimator, half ramp, and all fatties. In cube, they're usually BUG, with blue for card filtering, black for reanimation, and green for ramp and fatties.
  • Green contributions, non-fatty: Fauna Shaman, Life from the Loam, Grisly Salvage
Golgari Dredge
  • Another direction to take green would be something that Wizards halfheartedly experimented with in Modern Masters, but ultimately didn't pan out - dredge.
    • The concern with this archetype is that while it overlaps somewhat with reanimator, the Poison Principle certainly takes effect to some degree, as a lot of dredge cards have zero overlap with other decks. My other worry is that the deck could be somewhat non-interactive, and play out like a game of slow-paced solitaire where it either goes off or largely does nothing.
  • Green contributions: Worm Harvest, Golgari Grave-Troll (?), Life from the Loam, Grisly Salvage
Golgari Dredgevine
  • BG aggro isn't a thing at all right now. But maybe it could be, if we could port parts of the Dredgevine deck over to cube. The black aggro recursion package currently pairs best with red for its sacrifice outlets, but green has some tidbits that are worth mentioning.
  • Green recursive elements: Vengevine... and that's it
    • Would definitely need to double up, or more
Sorry if your innocent question elicited more of a response than you were expecting. ;) I don't have any real answers; just more questions. All of the above decks aren't exactly viable at the moment, and I'm at a crossroads as to whether I should pour more effort into supporting them, or just leave green in the sorry state it's currently in. I could certainly use some ideas!
 
Calvin Chan

Calvin Chan

Ok, I'll bite. The problem I always find with the current green pool is the quality of most green middling drops (3-5) is so much higher than the 1-2 drops which are more manadorks or utility creatures than actual threats, making green aggro very miserable. In addition the green low drops don't have real aggressive abilities or evasion to give the archtype a way to finish the fight (trampling 3 power guys are not getting there), which makes it feel like it loses to literal everything :)
And the "good aggro' gold cards in the list are perfectly midrange. I think blue's best reason to splash green is edric, which actually rewards green aggression.

I don't think the gruul ponza makes the green aggro deck better...the archtype needs more pressure and quality bodies than the disruption. As much as I love the land d, that nest invader is still going to have trouble winning any race. I think a gruul strategy could use more tricks, especially with the lowered removal quality. It just needs several more ways to push through some other powerful cards without losing a ton of card advantage.

I'm still toying with the selfmill strategy in my cube (/pile). I think the most important part is adding stuff that can activate from the grave. The G/B aggro deck really likes dreg mangler, and I'm also toying with unearth and deadbridge goliath +co. The slower (reanimator) archetype could use stuff like deadbridge chant and worm harvest to go long as well. I've got my eye on Nemesis of Mortals as well. The idea is that most of these cards are perfectly playable otherwise, but they should have additional value in this archtype. These haven't really been tested though. :p
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Thanks Calvin. Your insider's insight is refreshing and honest, and I'm always happy when someone can frankly tell me "This part of your cube sucks, here's why" and then back it up with evidence.

Some alternate approaches for green:
  • Embrace the midrange! Green sucks at aggro and control, anyways, so play up its midrange and ramp strategies. Pack in all the durdly three, four, and five drops till the cows come home.
    • The problem is that midrange is never really, well, good. A decent tempo deck will wipe the floor with it all day, and control loves nothing more than playing against a bunch of four mana 4/4s.
    • Unless we were to go all Waddell and toss in a couple of Birthing Pods as build-arounds. If you can't beat them...
  • Nerf everything until green is good again, then nerf green ramp. This is kind of radical and might be overkill for what isn't really a major problem. Or is it...?
 
CML

CML

Contributor
? Green aggro has always been mana-dorks and giant monsters. The aggro 1's and 2's are mainly there to fill in the curve. If green aggro sucks, don't add more bad creatures (just like if fixing sucks in DGR, don't add cluestones) -- add MANA DORKS. It's also worth noting that there is a cost for mana dorks. And that cost is 1 mana.

The occasional deck like Naya Blitz will come along but even then there are mana dorks. Zoo in Modern and Legacy has mana dorks. FFS a big plan a little over a year ago for standard was put a t2 SoWaP on a bird. just play mana dorks
 
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