Erik's "The cool side of Magic" cube

[Erik Twice]

More thoughts and changes.

First, I think one of these should go so I can take one card out of white.



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Terror of the Peaks is fun, but it reliably nukes the opponent's board while dealing massive damage to the opponent. I wanted it to support big creature decks, but you can slot him into any midrange deck and steal wins. I'm going back to Skargan because it's more fair and there are actually more decks looking for either a 4/4 Flying Haste or a 5/5 that survives Crater Hellion, Languish and Wildfire.

I'm revising my list and I notice there are a bunch of card that, while fine and even powerful and playable aren't really adding much to the cube. I think I should change some of them and refocus a bit my archetypes so the rest see play:

l

I think a few tweaks could go a long way. The small changes I've done in the last weeks have helped massively. At a glance:

- I should make tempo more viable. I get tempo decks with regularity, but they are a bit wonky. UG in particular needs some help.
- I need to support non-blue control less reliant on a handful of cards.
- Removal and card draw must be as heavily filtered as creatures

 

[Erik Twice]

Ok, let's do some changes. Would something like this work? Seems like it should:

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->
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I don't know if Blind with Anger works at my power level. I know it's better than it reads because the instant speed is huge, but I haven't actually played with the card. After including it on the cube I drafted a deck that ended up with all three cards I mention here and it looked right where I wanted it.

 

[Erik Twice]

My last three additions were fantastic. It might seem like a small change but it has done a lot for the cube.

Here's the thing: Before blue and green had to splash a third color just to have some basic functionality. It's a huge ask because all you want is one removal spell or two. And while Char is poor for red, the effect in blue is quite welcome. I feel my decks are more natural than they were before. After all, Exclude was a bit of a hoser. On the other hand, Blind with Anger gets away from the overcrowded 3cc slot and can be played in control, in aggro to get rid of a blocker and is a second threaten effect for aristocrats. I like it a lot.

Revising the list, here's how I see things.



Sagas are great designs and fun to play. However, they are a bit good-stuffy. They work well with Cataclysm, Death Cloud and Wildfire so they fill a role in my cube, but I can't help but wonder if they are the right choice. Both provide card advantage, which is specially important to white-based decks. They are not bad choices, I just feel they aren't the most interesting one.



My artifact decks lean midrange or control so Cranial Plating is a bit of a luxury. Most of the time, you'll be better off with any other equipment. The BB annex cost is nice but perhaps I should just cut it.

Metalwork is a big mana rock with two flaws: It dies to anything and there are not a lot of ways in my cube to use his mana. Hence, it also feels a bit like a luxury. I like that he's a mana rock that artifact decks can hope to wheel, but I don't think the dynamics he has are great.




This is a big dumb card. It has very little play to it other than "draft instants", which shouldn't even be the focus of green. It leads to either it being a bland 4/4 Flash or a card that prevents you from casting spells to maximize its effectiveness. I don't think either of those things is interesting. I think there might be other, more interesting four drops that work in UG and all other combinations. I also dislike having to take a bunch of tokens with me to use the card. However, it's not like there are a lot of green four drops.



These are strong cards that I can't quite make it work. They aren't traditional cards that slot into any deck and I've found it's easy to play them in the wrong decks. If you are going to win through card advantage, Time Spiral is a mistake. Gush is also nice for tempo decks, but not strictly necessary.





OG Liliana is fine. It makes it way in many decks, though it's never a stellar choice. I think I'm being too harsh on her. She's chunky without being overpowering and she is an expensive tutor for all decks that need one.

Greaves grants haste and shroud which makes it an interesting card. It would be silly to take it out only to add a Fires of Yavimaya effect in a colour. I think there are many decks who could run the card, perhaps to protect Feldon or a hatebear and it's not like it's unbeatable.



Lotus is important for Wildfire decks, though it does not synergize with some of my card choices elsewhere. Platinum Angel is a bit of a luxury, the 4 toughness really hurts. However, I really like the card.




This sees less play than I would want to. If you are deep into UW Blink, this is probably overkill. My hope was for it to see more play in other colour combinations like UR or UG. I think a couple changes have boosted its use, but we'll have to see.

By the way, can't thank Nanonox enough for drafting my cube whenever I think I've reached a dead end. Seeing the decks someone with far more experience than I builds helps me massively.

 

[Nanonox]

Happy I can help! I like drafting your list, as the decks seem fun and there are many directions to go into and explore.

I ended up cutting Cranial Plating not too long ago as it isn't strictly necessary (a luxury as you say). I haven't really missed it, but I don't support artifact aggro either. I've found that I'd rather have access to more generic artifacts that go everywhere. If you aren't a fan of sagas as card advantage for white, maybe try these two artifacts which have been really awesome for me and an extra bauble for Emry/general smoothing of draws

 

[Erik Twice]

I'm really glad to hear that Nanonox, I appreciate it

I think there's a possibility of extending artifacts to all colours and hence artifact aggro in Boros. At a glance, this would not diminish my artifact-based archetypes as the payoffs would still be in URB, but it could make the cube more interesting. I've thought about rinning the three cards you mention but I haven't liked them enough. I've palyed a lot with Treasure Map and I think it's worse than it seems, you have to put a lot of mana into it at the most critical stages of the game. Mazemind is better, but I don't understand why it exiles itself, seems like a lost opportunity. Terrarion would be my choice of a third cantrip though I wonder if I really need them. I also suspect my players won't value them highly enough.

Some changes:

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This fills the same role while giving more support for incidental artifacts. Since I already run Verdurous Gearhulk, I've been thinking of adding some more green artifacts to make Welder decks with green a reality. Dumping artifacts with Survival and then reanimating them with Welder seems a cool play. However, I dislike the life gain and snowbally nature of The Great Henge. That said, I recognize that it's a very expensive card in my cube, I don't have many high-power creatures to fuel it.

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I've been very impressed with Terror of the Peaks, so much I had to cut it. It was nuking the opponent's board and swinging for massive amounts of damage. Still, I liked the card and Thorn Mammoth is similar. It seems a more interesting card that Avenger of Zendikar, has immediate ETB value and is not broken if reanimated. It overlaps a bit with Angel of Despair, but I think I'm ok with that.

I want to tone down my removal a liiittle bit either in number or quality. For example, I have 8 "pure removal" cards in black plus Smallpox and others. I think it's a bit too easy to blow up a key play .I like that you can't just wheel Char anymore and blue has actual options, though. However, I don't know what options I have to replace:

or

Out:




Cranial Plating is aggro artifact support, which is not a deck in the cube.

Tragic Slip is one removal spell too many.

 

[sigh]

Mazemind Tome is awesome for a durdly artifact trinket in more controlling decks. It's a Jayamdae Tome that modern decks can actually afford to run. Once/if I do a 2021 overhaul, it's definitely up for consideration.

I think Thorn Mammoth is an excellent include, as it will be instrumental in helping that style of deck clear a path for dealing damage.

 

[Erik Twice]

The thing is: Is it really something my decks want? I can see it being a good second-tier card for Wildfire decks and non-blue control. I'm going to consider this:

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This one is odd. I think FoF is a lot of fun, even if it's very powerful. I'm not sure




Out:




I wasn't sure whether to cut Finks or Renegade Railler. But Finks...really does nothing special other than being good and gaining life. So I think it's the cut. On the other hand, Renegade Railler has never done anything meaningful. It draws a card or ramps but that's it.

 

[Erik Twice]

Today I took all my proxies, lack of red and everything, and played with a friend at the club. He really liked grid drafting and confessed he was very sceptic of the idea of drafting with two before trying. It was a chance to actually play the cube in person instead of just theorizing.

I do not have lists of what we drafted. I drafted some kind of UG artifact nonsense and he drafted what could have been a fairly standard WB aggro deck except he decided to go into WG instead and just jam creatures. He didn't know most of the cards, but he immediately saw the potential of most archetypes and found ways to dump Genesis into the graveyard and turn Thraben Inspector into a draw engine. That said, it was a weird draft because we barely saw any removal.

He said he was very happy to see equipment as he felt it gave aggro a chance after being wiped or simply having his creatures removed. He would have liked to see a combat trick or two, though I feel the lack of removal played onto it. Still, I've already considered Blossoming Defense as an option. He also liked that everything felt fair, but there were strong cards.

He did some cool things with the cards he had. It was not just playing one card after the other. This is what I wanted to see. He made some recommendations based on what he saw and most of it was already in the cube, we just didn't see it. However, he undervalued some cards like Seeker of the Way.

For me the highlight of the draft was using Phantasmal Image to copy his Ramunap Excavator and then bring back Mishra Factory over and over to chump block his. Grafted Wargear is stupidly strong, but it doesn't grant trample. I loved using Trading Post to eat my Chromatic Star over and over.

Some thoughts:

1) I did not like Dig Through Time. It felt like a reward just for playing the game. It is not busted or anything, just very cheap.
2) I'm cutting Paradise Druid. I felt like I had too much ramp and I could just take the colorless options. Druid is awkard and can be cut for something more aggressive.
3) My format is not very fast. Everything has an aswer and advantages don't snowball very quickly. You can durdle but you'll get hit in the face while doing so. My friend remarked it was very to my taste, I did not expect him to notice. Still, I would like to increase the pressure a little bit.
4) Urza was still bad. I also tried The Antiquities War instead of Tezzeret, I think the latter is more interesting. TAW was ok, but felt shallow.

 

[Erik Twice]

Dom has been kind enough to draft my cube a few times and I truly appreciate it because he makes some great stuff:

BR Aggro Sacrifice:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/601665d1e98c6d0808f800a0

WG Tokens
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/6014fbafb427771050aa0b6b

UR Spells
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/6014f198b427771050a9d349

I should fit Vengevine in more decks, like you do. One question I do have Dom: Do you like Stronghold Assassin? I know the decks you drafted had other, more aggressive outlets so it wasn't the best slot for the card so I'm curious. (Personally, I think it fits better in GB decks with recursion).

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I've been revising my list and there's a card that hasn't been doing anything:




I just don't seem to draft into it and, when I do, I know it's not going to be great. After all, what kind of decks is it supposed to be in? Reanimator? I have a lot of better reanimation spells in Black and artifact reanimation in red. GR monsters? It seems a bit of a luxury there. For example, see this decklist:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/600a118b2e51d31058100267

Is Feldon really doing something good here? Is it worth the slot in the cube?

Another card that isn't doing much is:



I'm not sure why, but it has dissapointed me a bit. It's a card that is great when you can clear the board for attacks or for token synergy. But the former is not very likely and Dom chose not to run it in a deck with sacrifice outlets. So how necessary is it? These kind of cards are a staple and I'm very poor at evaluating them so I wonder if they are the right choice for my cube or not. Again, my own lack of skill is a serious limitation.

After all I might be able to add tokens elsewhere if I want the synergy. I might add back Mogg War Marshall, for example.

I also wonder if this really works:



Deed is a very strong card. Very, very strong. However, it's more symetrical than it has ever been. My Golgari decks are very creature-heavy and don't like seeing the board blow up. It also has anti-synergy with the ocassional artifact like Crucible of Worlds or Smuggler's Copter. Again, I'm not sure if it's a real issue or just my lack of deckbuilding skills.

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The reason I'm reconsidering some of my red cards is that I wonder if I can improve my synergies with a few changes:



The Crusher is a big beater that gets rid of excess lands and fills the graveyard. However, he only puts lands there not anything you can actually recur.

Mizzium Tank is another spells payoff, meaning I would probably replace Monastery Swiftspear for it. My thinking is that it's yet another artifact and it may make aggressive artifact decks more of a thing. It has a flaw, though, in that it doesn't dodge Wildfire or other similar effects because it's mandatory to transform it into a creature. However, making Boros artifact aggro good seems more difficult than I think: It may be a step down in power level to use cards like Inventor's Apprentice and Toolcraft Exemplar. On the opposite end, I'm not too fond of the artifacts I could use to artifact green.



If I manage to artifact my whole cube, I can run stuff like this:



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Anyways, for now my only revision is:

->

I could replace Dig Through Time, but it's a payoff for filling the graveyard and I don't have many of those. It's a bit easy for my tastes but hey, it's what works.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Stronghold Assassin is a powerful card but it only really goes in dedicated sacrifice decks (or some grindy BG decks like you mentioned) and I find the pool of good BR cards is so deep that I'd rather have cards that belong in those decks but also contribute to discard/graveyard synergies etc

I also feel Feldon is a trap - I'd love to have it do silly things with Reveillark or w/e but it just so rarely comes together and those decks tend to have a glut of 3 drops anyway

One thing that stood out was that some cards presuppose a greater focus on fixing or fetchlands than you can rely on seeing - Renegade Rallier is one but I also had several aborted attempts at Cruel Ultimatum decks that never made it to the end or survived but cut Ultimatum despite it being the initial goal because the mana just didn't work

 

[Erik Twice]

I want to go print some proxies and get the ball rolling again. A bunch of friends have many cheap cards and chances are I could replace a good chunk of the cube with actual cards. But for that I first need to finish the whole thing. Some thoughts:

Multicolor cards that could be replaced by something better:



Other than that and what I've mentioned above there's not much I see that I could easily improve. Sure, I can find ways to make Bx tempo decks more common but I don't know how. I could artifact my whole cube, but I don't really know how. So I can only make small changes.

I find the pool of good BR cards is so deep that I'd rather have cards that belong in those decks but also contribute to discard/graveyard synergies etc

The card pool as a whole or the pool in my cube? Regarding fixing, I think there's more than enough for Railler and Cruel Ultimatum, it's just that CubeCobra is weird about it. Still, Ultimatum is a pet card, I can't justify it on pure design terms.

 

[Erik Twice]

I've been doing some changes. Not even bother to document them, I just went and cut all the weird multicolour stuff that wasn't getting played. Same thing with some green cards like Become Immense and others that were so poor I can't even remember what they did. Also I decided to jump the gun and make more cuts and add some potential gamebreakers.

IN



OUT


I'm just throwing stuff to the wall and seeing what sticks. Any tips?

 

[Erik Twice]

Seeing your decks is amazing guys. You are so much better at drafting than I am! You actually draft in a logical manner, the famous "hard way", instead of forcing colours from the start like I do.

I particularly love the spicy use of Devastating Dreams in this UR deck drafted by Dom.
UR Discard

I also think I'm onto something here with this "Dimir Aggro Reanimator" deck:
Dimir Aggro Reanimator

I'm going to bite the bullet and follow Trainmaster's advice: I should run more mana dorks. Perhaps not a lot of them but I run too few to reliably support Gruul Monster decks and other aggro and midrange decks that rely on a bit of ramping. Right now I run only 4 dorks plus Lotus Cobra and Edge of Autumn. I'm going to try these two. Again, that is:




I do know I'm not going to run Joraga Treespeaker. That card is just dumb.

Some changes:

->

Two possible cuts:




Solemn Recruit is a strong card that just isn't really needed. It's also rare to pair it with sacrifice effects to grow it every turn, which is a shame.

Gush is busted but I find decks prefer Standstill or more traditional forms of card draw. Most decks in my cube want to hit those 4 or 5 lands so it comes at a very significant tempo cost.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Yes, Yes! Let the mana dorks flow through you!

 

[Erik Twice]

Ok so at this point I need this many cards per section of the cube.

1 Dimir
1 Gruul
1 Selesnya
0-1 White
0-1 Blue
2-3 Black
1-2 Red

Most notably, none of my cuts have been missed. For example, it took me a while to recognize that Renegade Railler was no longer in my cube. It wasn't adding much. There are no longer many cards like that, though I recongnize there are a couple (Yawmoth's Will). I also recognize the cards I pick shouldn't be 3-drops because all my decks naturally tend towards that number.

 

[LadyMapi]

I might have missed it, but...

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Ok so at this point I need this many cards per section of the cube.

1 Dimir

For Artifacts or for any midrange/control strategy.

1 Gruul

Good reanimation and ramp target.

1 Selesnya

A Great piece for Midrange with synergy for Aristocrats and Counters strategies. Very good, very playable, please run.

0-1 White

It looks like your white section could use some more 1-drops in general. I would definitely start here.

0-1 Blue

One of the most fun counterspells ever printed. If you like Censor, you'll love this!

2-3 Black

Recursive idiots for Black Aggro, Aristocrats, and Cryptbreaker decks.

1-2 Red

5 aggressive 1-drops is not enough to make aggro decks function consistently, these should help! I like these two because they can go into both burn/aggro decks and spells decks.

 

[Erik Twice]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions! I've been thinking about what works and what doesn't so I can not just add good cards but see where they are needed.

Stuff that isn't pulling its weight:



And most notably:



Wait, how can Sylvan Library "not pull its weight"? Simple: I think my green control or midrange decks aren't great. Or I'm not good at drafting them.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions! I've been thinking about what works and what doesn't so I can not just add good cards but see where they are needed.



Wait, how can Sylvan Library "not pull its weight"? Simple: I think my green control or midrange decks aren't great. Or I'm not good at drafting them.

Green midrange decks in most environments tend not to be Sylvan Library decks. Most green decks want to go Dork-->Stomper or Dork-->Dork-->Stomper. Sylvan Library does not fit cleanly into that curve. Green decks also have access to some of the best reasonable card selection/board advantage planeswalkers, so they don't really need the Sylvan Library effect.

In cube, Sylvan Library is at it's best either in fast combo decks that care little for life totals and can use the card draw to great effect, or slow control decks with lots of shuffle and scry effects to remove unwanted cards. Your cube doesn't really have the former, and it's missing the key pieces of the latter. Sylvan Library is a good card to cut.

 

[Erik Twice]

That's the thing Trainmaster. I want those decks to exist in my cube. But...they don't. So I want to see if I should cut it, like you say, or see if I can shift things a little

 

[Dom Harvey]

5-drop planeswalkers and a 2-mana card draw/filtering engine don't really play the same role. I'm more than happy to play Sylvan Library in creature-heavy midrange decks and Erik's Cube has much less focus on mana creature -> 3-drop sequences than most

 

[Nanonox]

Hey Erik,

I was wondering your reasoning for including Frantic Search (to a lesser extent Snap). I've always liked these cards and am looking for an excuse to reinclude them.

 

[Erik Twice]

Frantic Search is like a Thrill of Possibility that is actually good. If you want to play spells, dump lands from Loam and Land Tax or put creatures in the graveyard it's the best way to do it. Sure, it's card disadvantage, but you can always discard something that makes it neutral. To me it's a way of allowing decks to rely on synergy without taking a hit to their power level.

Snap I added for tempo reasons. You can bounce their guy and then play another threat, which is fantastic. Still, perhaps Silent Departure is a better fit for my cube.

 

[Erik Twice]

One of the things I want to do is makes like this actually good:
Dimir Dredge

I feel it's close, but not quite.

 

[Nanonox]

I think a Dimir card would do wonders for that deck. Some options





I think the Amalgam might be the best if the above deck is typical. You have 6 ways to trigger it, some of those are repeatable even.
Gisa and Geralf are very good, but require a lot of remodeling of your cube for full value. They are probably my favorite that I haven't gotten to work out yet.
Araumi is super powerful if you can self-mill. What turned me off is the wall of text (I know my drafters won't bother reading it).