Erik's "The cool side of Magic" cube

Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Ok, time to make some changes.

First, I'm slighty toning down my white removal:

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Second, I'm going to try something with Reanimator. I'm going to keep a high-power reanimator suite with my actual not-too-great targets. I think that if cheating a 6-drop is a good strategy I'll be better off than if I have to add very high-power monsters so reanimating them at four mana is worth it. It's a test and I might need to tone it down or change it down the line. Reanimator just wasn't doing well before. It was too brittle.



That said, I'm cutting a pet card. I love you Bogardan Hellkite but you are not good enough. You needed to cost 7, not 8.



Some other cuts. These cards weren't pulling their weight, didn't support any clear archetypes or simply can be removed from now. Some will make it back at some point.



I'm also going to change some cards to make them slighty more synergestic or interesting:

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I also want to make Harmonic Prodigy work. Love the design and it could provide for my red-based decks what Champion of the Parish provided for White. The issue is having enough cards with a triggered ability of the respective card types.

While the card is aggressive by nature, I think it can work in more midrange shells as well. Some stuff I've considered adding to support it:



Less likely:



I need to run the numbers and see how many creatures I need to support it. I have enough in blue, I can get them in red, that leaves Black and Green. There are surprisingly few shamans and wizards in Green, actually. I could try to make Deeproot Champion and Reshilent Khenra work but it seems unlikely.

Lastly, is Sprout Swarm good at my power level? Guess not. And I know it can be a bit miserable but I like that it can be fetched by Spellseeker...
 
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Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Chop, chop, chop. Let's make cuts until we are only left with the core of the cube.



Also, I'm not sure if this is the right move or not:
>
This also removes from the cube

The most noticiable effect of making more cuts is seeing how good the White section is. Sure, Timeless Dragon isn't doing much and it's a bit too small creature-wise but I have 48 cards already in place and it's very unlikely for me to cut or replace more than a couple of them.

All these cuts put the cube under 360 cards so I quickly slapped a couple cards in:



A last question: Is this good at my power level?

 
sigh

sigh

The fact that Galepowder has to attack to start benefiting can start becoming a lot more of a liability the higher in power you go. In your cube it might work out alright, especially considering that you do have a bit of a down-toned removal suite (no Swords to Plowshares, limited numbers of cheap straight kill spells, but you do have bolt)
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Since my white section is in such great shape, I decided to check practically every card in existance to fill the remaining two slots. And I've decided to add these two:



These are both versatile cards that are not just generic removal or more aggro beaters. They tie into several archetypes and should work well in my environment.

Now, there are a couple slots that could change slighty. For example, Force of Virtue could be any other anthem and I might look into Leoning Lightscribe or Kor Skyfisher. But those are very minor changes.
 
Nanonox

Nanonox

I like the 2 White cards!



I've really enjoyed this card in the Arena cube and in some other contexts. I think it would be a good fit for your cube (more so than Kor Skyfisher)
It protects your guys from removal, resets a saga, can enable ETBs, is a spell, is a human and can beat down on turn 2 as a worst case scenario.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Right now I'm happy at 50 cards, though I will give it a whirl if I end up getting an additional card. Thanks!

Sadly, the other colours are much harder to fix than white, if simply because I really have no idea or where to take them :(
 
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Erik Twice

Erik Twice

I've been thinking a bit about the other colours and decided to reinforce what I already have with some swaps, cuts and other minor changes.

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I'm going back to Baral. Ultimately, the extra synergies provided by the Stormcaller were minor compared to the drawback of not being a real two-drop. Baral's body is also relevant as a blocker and it covers a wide range of spells rather than the narrow "draft more cantrips" lean of Stormcaller. I already have too many cards that reward you for drafting 1 mana spells, don't need more.



Trinket Mage is a versatile card that works with blink, artifacts, Harmonic Prodigy and other archetypes. I'm running it because I feel the need for one more artifact support card and because it may work with Urza's Saga which I'll discuss below. It can fetch Bonesplitter as a bad Stoneforge Mystic so that's good, too.

Sower of Temptation is very strong. However, I don't run any other control Magic effects, it's easy to interact with and it has a bunch of synergies with blink, Birthing Pod and others. It's also a card both Tempo and Control are interested in so I want to give it a chance.

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Some changes for wider appeal.



I like both this card and Rise from the Tide as spell payoffs. TMC seems to have more play to it so it's in.

This leaves me at 48. Some cards I'm consdering are:



Would love to hear your thoughts.

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As for black:
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These are small changes that add more zombies to the cube for Gravecrawler.

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I'm thinking of removing all flip walkers from my cube. They are difficult for newbies to read and choose to ignore them instead of picking them highly. Flesh Carver is both a sacrifice outlet in black and a wizard for Harmonic Prodigy. It's also a human and kind of dumb.

This leaves me with one extra slot. However, there are some cards I may cut:



I also wonder if this is a huge downgrade. Perhaps I should just give up on Harmonic Prodigy:

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Some possible additions:



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I've also been thinking about running Urza's Saga. However, the fact that it puts the card into play and that it doesn't slot into aggressive archetypes limits its usefulness. At a glance, I run 10 good targets which is a bit too few. Some cards I could run to support it (The blank card is Portable Hole).



Talking about artifacts, this is a good swap:

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Love the historic aspect of Metalworker but it rarely works. I've also found my drafters put it in the wrong decks so it's a good cut on practical terms. That said, I wonder if I should cut this:



This was downright oppressive last time we drafted. It hit the board very quickly and just started killing a creature every turn. My opponents did not have much fun facing it.

Lastly, I need one more piece of equipment but I have no idea of which one to run.

That's all for now. Improving red and green will be very difficult, so I hope to have the rest of the cube in order first.
 
Nanonox

Nanonox

I second sigh's suggestions of Brazen Borrower and Commit // Memory. Solid interactive spells that offer lots of decisions.

Careful with Urza's Saga though, the casting cost literally has to be {1} or {0}. So Esper Sentinel wouldn't work.

I've like Yawgmoth's Will in your cube before and it's a fun build around so that gets my vote. Sedgemoor Witch plays also very well, but it is a powerful card. Combined with Y.Will it gives black a spells matter angle (add Kess, Dissident Mage for even more fun).

I'd be wary of Mox Diamond, it's a super powerful mana rock even if does have synergies.

I like the changes overall!
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

inscho said:
I love hearing that Cursed Scroll can still do some work. I've been considering bringing it back in my list. I've only had problems with it being a little underwhelming in my cube so it's interesting that it was oppressive in yours.
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It kills the vast majority of creatures in my cube so it quickly became repeateable removal for just three mana. In both games I had it, it quickly dominated. I'm keeping it for now but I'll keep an eye for it.

Nanonox said:
Careful with Urza's Saga though, the casting cost literally has to be {1} or {0}. So Esper Sentinel wouldn't work.
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Ah, true. Dammit hahaha

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Ok, let's do this in blue:

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It's a shame Suspend is restricted to just creatures, it would be far more interesting if it could hit artifacts or anything else, really.

But yeah, I'm a bit at a loss on how to work on my red or green sections so I'll need to think twice about making changes there.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

I'm having problems revising my red section, starting with the creatures.

These are the creatures I'm pretty certain I like. Except Goblin Sharpshooter, that one I'm not sure about.



I can add this package:



And



But I'm a bit at a loss beyond that. I keep looking, for example, for a dragon or something I really like in the 5 and 6 mana slot but I don't like any of the choices. There are surprisingly few creatures in those slots that survive Wildfire, for example, and that I like on their own.
 
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Erik Twice

Erik Twice

sigh said:
What are you looking to do with your red 5/6 mana slots? What sort of decks are going to be looking to slot one in?

Goblin Dark-Dweller is a classic inclusion at 5CMC, without diving in much.
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For me the big priority is supporting Wildfire and other red control decks. The colour is doing well as far as aggro is concerned and it needs only a bit of tweating to make it truly good at artifacts.

The second priority is supporting BR and GR decks, which means supporting the graveyard, tokens and pox.

I'm considering adding Sneak Attack/Feldon but that's minor and ties into BR Reanimator more than anything.
 
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sigh

sigh

so Dark-Dwellers is a perfectly fine inclusion given that context. It doesn't survive the wildfire itself, but it rebuys removal and draw spells that can really help a Rx control deck grind. Burning Sun's Avatar is an include I'm trying out for supporting grindy Rx strategies, and definitely survives wildfire.

That's almost everything I run lol, so if you want more includes than 1 card per slot someone else will have to tag in.
 
Nanonox

Nanonox

I've liked



You have some decisions when casting it which are interesting and it is a nice mana sink late game. It's playable in all sorts of Red decks.
I've also played Cavalier of Flame which ticks a lot of boxes (discard, lands, tokens). It was powerful, but the mana cost reduces the amount of decks that want it.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Dark-Dwellers is a fine inclusion but it feels like yet another spells payoff and it's not very exciting. I'm considering it but it's a bit meh. Burning Sun's Avatar is fine, but seems too low-powered for my cube.

I haven't had much luck with Skarggan Hellkite. It was in my cube for a long time but it never felt great. It's a good card but it's kind of fair. It's fine as a curve-topper but you would rather run anything else if you can. And in control, it's dissapointing because it does nothing until you spend 9 mana and then you get a flying Kavu.

I actually really like Terror of the Peaks, which you run, but it felt too good so I had to cut it. Playing it on turn four and following it with Uro was very easy and very, very dumb. It's also a pseudo one-card combo with Living Death. It also doesn't survive Wildfire, I would love for it to be a 4/5 instead of a 5/4
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

sigh said:
Hmm. thundermaw hellkite??
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There aren't a lot of options, are they?

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Either way, I've been thinking about a couple changes:

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These two cards look extremely similar to me, except one is colorless. Given the choice, I think I should move the slot to artifacts and free up space in red, as it's more valuable.

I also want to add:



It survives Wildfire, it is in fact useful to Wildfire, it can be blinked and adds support for a hypothethical 5 color deck that is getting closer to reality every time I add another card that cares about amount of colors spent.

And I want to remove:



Deal Broker is cool and it has

The Hellkite is actually a good card for control and reanimator and it should probably be kept in instead of Duplicant. What do you think?

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I've also gone and took out a bunch of cards from red and added a few from the list above. I also added:



Some cards I do want to improve on:



And, perhaps:

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Nanonox

Nanonox

I like the Doom engine swap and Golos makes sense with your Wildfire plan. I'm not a fan of the Duplicant cut however. You mentioned your UG decks need help with removal, well Duplicant counts!

If you cannot find Red creatures for your Wildfire decks, maybe artifact mana is the way to go there. With that in mind, I think the Cursed Mirror looks great.

Soul Shatter has been amazing in my MP cube, but I think it could still be good for you. Sacrificing the biggest threat they have is plenty powerful.
 
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