Unless you get judge promo old fetches!
But then my old bordered Stone Rain goes and ruins the aesthetic. o_O
Eric Chan's Modern cube (405)
- Thread starter Eric Chan
- Start date
Unless you get judge promo old fetches!
But then my old bordered Stone Rain goes and ruins the aesthetic. o_O
judge-promo's are the only way to save it..
Gah, those judge promo fetches are beautiful . . . I haven't lusted after a land this much since the Guru lands.
My Cube specifically has a Modern Frame only aesthetic requirement. It looks great and has actually been a lot of fun designing with the restriction. Sometimes old cards become "new releases" for me. Like recently, Sulfuric Vortex, Show and Tell and Hymn to Tourach all got first-in-modern-frame printings. Pricey getting all the promos though. If you plan on breaking format and switching to an aesthetic requirement let me know and I'll help you figure out some of the sneakier reprints.
Okay maybe I need to go have myself a look for a couple of these guys because there's at least one little black creature I feel -so- bad for at this point Eric.
Other ideas include Plagued Rusalka, Mortician Beetle and Cackler #2. I'm sure I could find something cooler than that if I dug a little deeper. I'm really excited about that bloodthrone vampire though, I hope the irrelevance of it's normal body doesn't become a big impact. Promise of Bunrei anynone?
I understand your powerlevel is comfortably lower than many other cubes, so I've always wondered if it would be an ideal home for another old fave that would support the aggro combo black decks:
I know BR tends to be a tight section.
Other ideas include Plagued Rusalka, Mortician Beetle and Cackler #2. I'm sure I could find something cooler than that if I dug a little deeper. I'm really excited about that bloodthrone vampire though, I hope the irrelevance of it's normal body doesn't become a big impact. Promise of Bunrei anynone?
I understand your powerlevel is comfortably lower than many other cubes, so I've always wondered if it would be an ideal home for another old fave that would support the aggro combo black decks:
I know BR tends to be a tight section.
If you just want a clean straight-forward black aggro creature, this little guy is pretty nice and flavorful, and combos well with an old standard star:
+
Oh man, I'm impressed that even though I haven't posted anything meaningful in this thread for nearly two weeks, you guys are still generating awesome discussion and suggestions for my cube. Rock on!
Lucas, those are some fantastic ideas. I'm finding that with a couple of random tokens or dorks out, Bloodthrone Vampire is nigh-invulnerable to black and red based removal. It's a little underpowered except in the sacrifice/recursion deck, though, so this allows you as a drafter to pass on it and pick it up on the wheel. I actually thought about including Scorched Rusalka and Thoughtpicker Witch as additional sac outlets, but I'm worried that their mana activation nudges them from nifty to unwieldy. It's a fine line, and maybe I should try at least one to be sure.
Lyzolda seems incredible. That would be an effect I'd gladly pay two mana a pop for. If I ever expand my gold sections, I'll give her a long hard look.
Kyultu, the Modern frame design constraint is interesting, but for now I prefer the 8th Edition onward restriction. I suppose I like that it's more cleanly defined and easier to track. I think there's more and more of a crowd for Modern frame cubes nowadays, though, so you're not alone, and in time I'm sure there will be plenty of lists and designers to compare notes with.
Jon, I actually had Vampire Lacerator in for a while, although back then my black aggro support was terribad. Now that I've got a mild zombie theme going, the archetype has legs again, so I'm concentrating my efforts there by doubling up on the key elements. I wish Kalastria Highborn had a broader trigger, but as it is, I can't really justify the room for a vampire theme in black in addition to the zombie one. I know that Andy Cooperfauss has custom errata on the card to have her trigger off any black creature, but my cube is confusing enough for all of my playgroup's new and lapsed players as it is, so scribbling more rules on textboxes isn't really an option for me.
But even if I can't always use them, I still want to thank you for all of your suggestions. I sincerely appreciate all of the input!
Lucas, those are some fantastic ideas. I'm finding that with a couple of random tokens or dorks out, Bloodthrone Vampire is nigh-invulnerable to black and red based removal. It's a little underpowered except in the sacrifice/recursion deck, though, so this allows you as a drafter to pass on it and pick it up on the wheel. I actually thought about including Scorched Rusalka and Thoughtpicker Witch as additional sac outlets, but I'm worried that their mana activation nudges them from nifty to unwieldy. It's a fine line, and maybe I should try at least one to be sure.
Lyzolda seems incredible. That would be an effect I'd gladly pay two mana a pop for. If I ever expand my gold sections, I'll give her a long hard look.
Kyultu, the Modern frame design constraint is interesting, but for now I prefer the 8th Edition onward restriction. I suppose I like that it's more cleanly defined and easier to track. I think there's more and more of a crowd for Modern frame cubes nowadays, though, so you're not alone, and in time I'm sure there will be plenty of lists and designers to compare notes with.
Jon, I actually had Vampire Lacerator in for a while, although back then my black aggro support was terribad. Now that I've got a mild zombie theme going, the archetype has legs again, so I'm concentrating my efforts there by doubling up on the key elements. I wish Kalastria Highborn had a broader trigger, but as it is, I can't really justify the room for a vampire theme in black in addition to the zombie one. I know that Andy Cooperfauss has custom errata on the card to have her trigger off any black creature, but my cube is confusing enough for all of my playgroup's new and lapsed players as it is, so scribbling more rules on textboxes isn't really an option for me.
But even if I can't always use them, I still want to thank you for all of your suggestions. I sincerely appreciate all of the input!
CML
Contributor
I do like Lyzolda a fair bit (2nd-best set ever) and think it's worth considering esp with a recursion theme. Bloodghasts and Gravecrawlers and Lyzolda, fucking awesome (there's a good discussion about another 1br card over on the other forum too)
I agree with Eric cards like Lacerator / Highborn are design traps. There's not enough of them to justify the amount of space the theme would need.
I agree with Eric cards like Lacerator / Highborn are design traps. There's not enough of them to justify the amount of space the theme would need.
Woops, I can't believe I missed addressing this in my earlier reply. My solution to this issue was to aggressively add more dredgers + a Noxious Revival
If one were playing Vorapede (although Eric doesn't), I think Golgari Grave-Troll would be a semi equivalent resilient green fatty to consider. It's obviously not the same thing, but it certainly brings more interesting gameplay/draft decisions to the table, while filling a similar role.
Rot Farm Skeleton is another very good dredger because 1) It's a free spell to dredge into 2) It's easy to repeatably dredge without needing a discard outlet since it provides good pressure 3) You still get a draw step for finding lands (if you haven't hit Life from the Loam) which is a crucial since these decks tend to be very mana hungry 4) It's a resilient finisher like Golgari Grave-Troll, which is great when you don't have something like Seismic Assault. It also happens to play well in a Gravecrawler / Bloodghast deck too!
Also thanks for the Lyzolda, the Blood Witch mention! I had thought about it before, but my cube wasn't nearly as sacrifice happy yet. Time to make the jump I guess!
Entomb for Loam.
Oh, uh... 
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Highborn is close to being good enough already, and if you can find enough good cards that happen to be Vampires I can see it being very good.
Plus the idea of activating Mirror Entity for 0 with Highborn in play pleases me in ways it shouldn't.
Plus the idea of activating Mirror Entity for 0 with Highborn in play pleases me in ways it shouldn't.
Lets not go back down into that pit of "the only logical for power level reasons" type thinking. I'm sure if more cubes had green tuned better for midranged that it would be nothing to turn your nose at to be making all your mana elves be doing something other than sitting looking stupid waiting to help cast a craterhoof or silverheart (or pick up the occasional equipment if you are into that kind of thing).
I've certainly seen people make great use of the literal Riptide Laboratory in cube, but that has spanned my cubing since like scourge. Goblins also used to be a really cheap and fast way to make red feel more interesting and interactive. I think that might have gone out with creatures getting better and damage no longer stacking though.
I think depending on the format you are looking to put together, there are tonnes of tribes worth keeping an eye on. If you wanted to make blue into a weird tempo deck you could slide in tonnes of faeries and wizards and you'd feel pretty cool explaining things to your drafters.
Anyway I'm just always keeping an eye on Eric's last pick sorta ensemble and whenever I find myself on his cubetutor page I like to look at the highest and lowest pick cards and I wonder how those could be swapped for similar role players or things with more cross appeal. When we do 4x11 split I find there are lots of cards I pass in my colours because I just naturally look them over, but that might also just be my short comings as an open minded person and as a forward thinker.
I've certainly seen people make great use of the literal Riptide Laboratory in cube, but that has spanned my cubing since like scourge. Goblins also used to be a really cheap and fast way to make red feel more interesting and interactive. I think that might have gone out with creatures getting better and damage no longer stacking though.
I think depending on the format you are looking to put together, there are tonnes of tribes worth keeping an eye on. If you wanted to make blue into a weird tempo deck you could slide in tonnes of faeries and wizards and you'd feel pretty cool explaining things to your drafters.
Anyway I'm just always keeping an eye on Eric's last pick sorta ensemble and whenever I find myself on his cubetutor page I like to look at the highest and lowest pick cards and I wonder how those could be swapped for similar role players or things with more cross appeal. When we do 4x11 split I find there are lots of cards I pass in my colours because I just naturally look them over, but that might also just be my short comings as an open minded person and as a forward thinker.
CML
Contributor
Faeries and Wizards are powerful on their own, though, K Highborn really isn't.
Lacerator is a good card but then you need to make a pretty big black aggro section, don't you? Otherwise it's just a dude without a home. (The Gravecrawler / Griselbrand parable about people's bad Black sections is still germane)
24: I just made it up but I'm pretty sure it's close to being right, otherwise sometimes it just won't come together (though realistically I'd want the themes to be even bigger than that just so other drafters can dip in and not screw the tribal person)
Lacerator is a good card but then you need to make a pretty big black aggro section, don't you? Otherwise it's just a dude without a home. (The Gravecrawler / Griselbrand parable about people's bad Black sections is still germane)
24: I just made it up but I'm pretty sure it's close to being right, otherwise sometimes it just won't come together (though realistically I'd want the themes to be even bigger than that just so other drafters can dip in and not screw the tribal person)
What do you mean? It definitely should please you in all those ways.
Well yes, it isn't great on it's own (neither is Opposition without creatures
) but it's definitely the type of card that would push you towards actually drafting vampires right? Especially if sac outlets are a thing in the cube....and you can pair it with Blood Artist / Bloodghast / Falkenrath Aristocrat.Lol well...let's think about it...
Assumptions:
• 8 man draft
• On average people draft 2 colors decks
• Vampires are only in one color and we have a flat power curve
• 15 cards packs have on average 4-7 cards in a person's color (2ish cards per color, 1-2 artifacts/lands, maybe 1 multicolor...in an avg cube at least, maybe not yours CML)
With 2 colors decks all around, there's ~3 people per color. So if there's one vampire per pack (24 vampires total) they'll take it 1/7 - 1/4 of the time and thus you lose out on 3-6 vampires.
If you aggressively take the rest, you end up with 18-21. This is probably inflated because they wont break down to one per pack usually, so it might be more like ending up with 15-18.
....Which is still insanely high.
I think if you're aiming to have 2/3s of your 15ish creatures be vampires, then 15ish in the whole cube is enough? Thoughts on my really loose math? It probably doesn't change that much to spread a few to different colors. It just messes with how you prioritize them and means you get a few less if they're in two different splash colors.
Personally, I'm trying explicit (beyond humans) tribal shtuff in my cube and have the following numbers...
23 Vampires / 28 Soliders / 31 Goblins in a 560 cube (4 Changlings included in those ^^)
which translates to about
15 / 18 / 20 in a 360 cube?
Haven't had enough experience with it to know if it works or not, but the numbers seem fine.
CML
Contributor
Now this is interesting, since people end up passing Champ here frequently (not saying they should) and I have a monstrous amount of Humans.
If only one person wants all the Vamps, is that good design? If all the people want the Vamps equally, is that good design? Cube (and design and art and life) are full of these headache-inducing tensions
The analogy I'd use is that Vampires aren't all that "deep" of a tribe. Compared to popular Cube tribes like Goblins, Elves, Soldiers there aren't a lot of Vampires and there are even fewer Vampires that stand on their own merit. In Legacy the three tribal decks are Goblins, Elves, Merfolk. Goblins is a durdly old control deck with tutors and bullets and cards that stand on their own (Kiki-Jiki, Sharpshooter, or to use a less extreme example Krenko). Elves is a languidly-paced combo deck with tutors and bullets and other random good cards (Deathrite, mana dorks, Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith). Merfolk would not exist if not for being able to run 4x of the best Merfolk ever, and the cards are fairly awful when not played en masse with one another. Vamps seem more like Fish than Elves or Gobs to me.
If only one person wants all the Vamps, is that good design? If all the people want the Vamps equally, is that good design? Cube (and design and art and life) are full of these headache-inducing tensions
The analogy I'd use is that Vampires aren't all that "deep" of a tribe. Compared to popular Cube tribes like Goblins, Elves, Soldiers there aren't a lot of Vampires and there are even fewer Vampires that stand on their own merit. In Legacy the three tribal decks are Goblins, Elves, Merfolk. Goblins is a durdly old control deck with tutors and bullets and cards that stand on their own (Kiki-Jiki, Sharpshooter, or to use a less extreme example Krenko). Elves is a languidly-paced combo deck with tutors and bullets and other random good cards (Deathrite, mana dorks, Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith). Merfolk would not exist if not for being able to run 4x of the best Merfolk ever, and the cards are fairly awful when not played en masse with one another. Vamps seem more like Fish than Elves or Gobs to me.
I'm very curious about Tribal in cube, since I'm trying to support Knights and Zombies in mine. I'm thinking about including some Changelings to help.
Yea I agree it's not all that deep. I guess I should note that for me and my cube, the vampire tribal idea is not as much a "vampire deck" as much as it is a thing you can incidentally get value out of while drafting a black aggro or black sacrifice deck. The only real pushes towards it are Kalastria Highborn and Blade of the Bloodchief anyway (and Bloodthrone Vampire, but that's a good card regarless). The other unorthodox vampire choices to push the tribal support all go into a similar archetype anyway, so it's not too much of a stretch.
Calling it tribal might be a bit of a misnomer. I'm more about the small synergies you can get from tribal interactions, as opposed to pushing lords.
Calling it tribal might be a bit of a misnomer. I'm more about the small synergies you can get from tribal interactions, as opposed to pushing lords.
I think Lucas posted this question in one of our chatcast topic threads, but we never got around to discussing it: human tribal.
Is the payoff worth it? As far as I can tell, Champion is the only reason to try for a linear human deck. I suppose if you go into green, there's the Mayor, and now in black we have some necromancy. Are those off-colour rewards sufficient for going deep into the tribe? If you don't get those, is it worth it to draft your deck around a couple of one-drops?
I have marginal jank like Doomed Traveler and Gideon's Lawkeeper in there to try and reach a critical mass for the human decks, but I just don't know if it's a thing. I'm seriously considering swapping out Midnight Haunting for Gather the Townsfolk to give the deck more legs. Too deep? Not deep enough? I can't tell either way.
Is the payoff worth it? As far as I can tell, Champion is the only reason to try for a linear human deck. I suppose if you go into green, there's the Mayor, and now in black we have some necromancy. Are those off-colour rewards sufficient for going deep into the tribe? If you don't get those, is it worth it to draft your deck around a couple of one-drops?
I have marginal jank like Doomed Traveler and Gideon's Lawkeeper in there to try and reach a critical mass for the human decks, but I just don't know if it's a thing. I'm seriously considering swapping out Midnight Haunting for Gather the Townsfolk to give the deck more legs. Too deep? Not deep enough? I can't tell either way.