Erik's "The cool side of Magic" cube

[Nanonox]

've really soured on Crucible. Being colourless gives it this allure of being playable anywhere but in practice even decks that should want it rarely do.

The colorless on Crucible doesn't do much for me either because I've yet to see a non-Green deck use it super well.

So I've been combing through drafts of my cube and Erik's to find decks that use Crucible to prove you wrong and to my dismay, I've learned something. Turns out, you are both right. Not very many decks use it and those that do, are 95% (made up number) Green.

I was under the (wrong) impression that self-mill decks would be using it as a value engine, but that's apparently too narrow. The self-contained engine of LftL is much better for those decks.

I am still considering the Crucible for my MP cube because it is less vulnerable than the Excavator and it has the explosive potential with Fastbond. But thanks for the reality check!

 

[Erik Twice]

Crucible has proven itself in my cube. The main reason you don't see it much is that it archetypes its best in, like Wildfire, are so well-tested that I don't have to draft them anymore. More over, the decks I test the most tend to be ones that don't want either card so they are underrepresented. Still, you can find some if you look for Wildfire, Stax or Pox. Many decks I label as "artifacts" are actually Wildfire ramp decks. Either way, I run a lot of cards that make Crucible good:



The most common colours for Wildfire and friends in my cube are Boros and Rakdos. The trick is to get either the namesaske card or Worn Powerstone first. Green shows up, but this deck doesn't tend to be very creature-based so it's rarer than you might think. The analysis page gives me as many decks with Crucible as decks with Snapcaster Mage, so it's not exactly unplayed.

Out of the three, Life of the Loam is the most useful card because it can be played from the graveyard and mills you for 3. The second most useful is Crucible because it's colorless. The third is Ramunap Excavator, which is harder to build around because, unlike the previous two, it can be easily killed. I was just wondering if I could get by with just two copies of the effect so I could cram more 3-mana creatures.

Self-Mill decks won't play these cards. The exception are some UG control decks running Uro, those often want Life from the Loam. I would say the majority of self-mill decks in my cube are aggressive so there's not much room for the effect. To me it's a controllish synergy card. The only exception is Oath, but that's a extreme example.

Still, I do plan to revisit the Wildfire/Pox/Stax/Wrongfun archetype, which should boost crucible. Here's the thing, my cube has about 380 cards. Any small change has a large impact because you'll see the card almost every time.

 

[Erik Twice]

I couldn't sleep yesterday so I kept thinking. Perhaps I should support Superramp and Monster decks. They are very natural archetypes and it might not take many slots to do so.

I also saw people use Lotus Bloom into Tooth and Nail and now I wonder if it's a way to sneak in storm cards. Oh no

 

[Erik Twice]

A couple friends cornered me after playing at the club and asked me when we were going to play with my cube again. On one hand, I can just take it with the improvements I've made so far and it will work perfectly. On the other, I want to keep working on it! I just saw how you can boost Dreadhorde's Arcanist power with Ignoble Hierarch and I want more stuff like that.

Before making any large changes, I think I should make some small changes to some minor cards to improve tribal synergies including artifacts and the like. I think it may prove benefitial for the cube, though I like the replacements less than the original cards:

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Just running a couple more humans in red should allow for more synergies with Xanthrid Necromancer, for example. I'm also 100% sure I need one more green spell to make it a better third option for spells decks. The idea is not to drive the theme into green but simply allow splashes into it, like one already does with black. Hence:



Some cool stuff I'm daydreaming about.

 

[Dom Harvey]

For the record Arcanist doesn't work with Exalted the way we all want - the spell in your graveyard has to be a valid target when DHA's ability goes on the stack before its power is boosted by Exalted

 

[Erik Twice]

Some small changes to improve card types or simply make everything more well-rounded:

Add:


The Golem is a beefy 4-drop that fits well in a wide range of decks. I hope it boosts artifact, taxing and ramp decks.

Containment Construct is very much worth testing. It's a powerful ability and I wonder if it does something in my cube before I start supporting it. I imagine there's a possible build of the cube where I can run these cards and have them support a lot of exciting archetypes:



However, I might instead cut the Construct and run one more card in all colours. This would allow me to stick to 390 cards which I think is a good size.

Improved slots:

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Most of these changes simply replace a card with one with some tribal or synergy benefit. For example, Journey to Nowhere does not trigger Young Pyromancer while Fateful Absence does.

Jolrael just hasn't worked in my cube. I don't have enough cantrips. Sure, I have card draw and cards that work like cantrips but very few of them actually trigger her ability. She has not made any decks and, while cool, I don't think I can support her anymore. Burning-Tree is bland but she's a human shaman.

I think I can cut Golgari-Grave Troll and Genesis for actual graveyard payoffs. Falkenrath Pit Fighter needs to be a human or something exciting at least.

I would love to have a copy of Hanweir Garrison with the trinket text gone, though. Do you have one?

The other slots I think I can put to better use:

 

[Erik Twice]

I want to run Mukotai Soulripper but I don't know which card to cut for it. I run too many sacrifice outlets so as to add another one D:

 

[blacksmithy]

cut your worst sac outlet
edit: PROBABLY flesh carver? not sure

 

[Erik Twice]

cut your worst sac outlet

And which one is it? I don't know! I mean, I guess one of the spells is one, but I was thinking of the creatures. Carrion Feeder is out of the question. Flesh Carver is cuttable but he's a human wizard. Yawghmoth is OP and an easy cut but I also like that it's a bit OP.

 

[blacksmithy]

flesh carver was my pick , could also see cutting smallpox

 

[sigh]

Smallpox would probably be my pick, unless your drafters are gaga over it. It can be finicky to draft and use well.

 

[Nanonox]

I could see Smallpox or Diabolic Intent. I don't know how valuable a tutor is in your format when you have to spend 2 mana + a creature. It would work well with Living Death or Birthing Pod as those are nice build arounds that tend to be creature heavy.
But won't work with other build arounds like Oath of Druids and Sneak Attack which are lighter on creatures.

Also, I've been a fan of



As a discard outlet that randomly creates artifacts. I don't think you need Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar to make it good even though it would also be good in your cube IMO.

And on the subject of Rakdos cards, have you considered Mayhem Devil instead of Judith, the Scourge Diva?
It's bigger and triggers off so much more than Judith for both players: fetch lands, clues, treasures, food, Knight of the Reliquary, Sylvan Safekeeper, Wildfire among others.

 

[Erik Twice]

I think I'm going to do something unusual and that's to cut two sacrifice outlets instead of one. And I think my choices ought to be Flesh Carver and Diabolic Intent. Smallpox is not as well-supported as I would have hoped but I really like the card. So I thought about it and I like the 1-2-4 curve of sac outlets more than 1-2-3 or -1-2-3-4. The only issue is that I lose one Wizard. But Flesh Carver is a bit of a dumb card and I'm always dissapointed it didn't make zombies so eh.

Either way, I have a list of cards that aren't doing much and I'm just revising them slowly. Here's another batch:

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The troll is not doing anything. When I got it into the cube nothing changed, it didn't create or boost more archetypes or anything fun like that. So I'm going to replace it, for now, with Garruk so I have more beef.

Prismatic Vista just wasn't needed. The cube has more than enough fixing and it's less fun to draft than the other options. So I decided to cut the slot.

I could see Smallpox or Diabolic Intent. I don't know how valuable a tutor is in your format when you have to spend 2 mana + a creature. It would work well with Living Death or Birthing Pod as those are nice build arounds that tend to be creature heavy.
But won't work with other build arounds like Oath of Druids and Sneak Attack which are lighter on creatures.

Also, I've been a fan of



As a discard outlet that randomly creates artifacts. I don't think you need Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar to make it good even though it would also be good in your cube IMO.

And on the subject of Rakdos cards, have you considered Mayhem Devil instead of Judith, the Scourge Diva?
It's bigger and triggers off so much more than Judith for both players: fetch lands, clues, treasures, food, Knight of the Reliquary, Sylvan Safekeeper, Wildfire among others.

I've been wondering if I should add both Asmorano and her book. I just haven't gotten there yet! A one mana 3/3 with pseudo-madness should be good in my cube.

Regarding Devil, I started with it at first. However, Judith has a few advantages. First, she's just a fun card. The anthem effect is fun, the ping of damage makes combat interesting and she's very well contained. She's also a human and a shaman, which I appreciate. You can play her in any Rakdos deck and have fun but she's better with sacrifice outlets and other synergies.

Devil has a couple issues. The first is that it's a much narrower card. Sure, it works with a lot of stuff, but it has a synergy role as opposed to good-stuff. This is not inherently bad, but I prefer not being able to wheel it. I also miss the support Judith gives to aggro.

Above all, the Devil has a lot of "gotchas". Your opponent sacrifices a fetchland and then you do some trick to pile one extra point of damage and bam, their beater is gone. They think they have a clear attack and bam, you pile on damage and punish them hard. It reminds me a bit of Legend of the Five Rings, which was a great game where not noticing this stuff would cost you the game. I don't know, I'm not sure if it's the most fun card. Above all, I think the issue is that it works with fetches, if it was just other cards or your cards it would be fine but I don't like the way it works with just getting your mana in order.

I do admit pairing it with Wildfire is hilarious, I never thought about that!

 

[Erik Twice]

I'm too much of a coward to make larger changes so I'm just going to try this:

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I'm still like "well, I could try to support storm again but..."

 

[Erik Twice]

I haven't had the time to do this in ages, so I'm going to just plop down all the updates I had in my maybeboard:

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It's just for fun. I don't think my cube should support storm. I'll just get rid of all these cards next time Theonly reason I'm doing this is that I don't know which archetypes I can support instead.

 

[blacksmithy]

you might think about keeping abundant harvest and once upon a time with or without storm, they’re super good

 

[Erik Twice]

I haven't had the time to do anything with my cube or even play at all, but I'm going to make these small changes:

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It just seems an improvement at very little cost, if any.

 

[Erik Twice]

I'm slighty back from the dead and I have ideas. These ones, to start:

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Let's give them a couple drafts and see how they work. If they work at all!

 

[Erik Twice]

Five more changes:

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Gush wasn't doing anything interesting so I wanted to test Occult Epiphany instead.

Torrential Gearhulk is such a powerful card, yet it has consistently dissapointed me because it doesn't hit sorceries. This meant it was just a powerful, good-stuff card and not a cool semi-synergetic piece. Kappa Cannoneer should be a good reanimator target and has better artifact synergies (like Underwoold Cookbook) so I'm testing that instead.

Magus dropped down in value once Wheel of Fortune came in. Even then, it suffered heavily from 24th card syndrome. Is it good? Yes. Does it fit several decks, yes. But none were really that interested in it. The deck that were, however, would have preffered a payoff rather than an enabler, hence why I decided to go for Anje's Ravager.

Hedron Crab did nothing. I don't expect Cephalid Coliseum to do anything, either, but it's a land. So let's use it as filler for now.

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Also, I'm going back to General Kudro because Nalia does nothing. Here's the thing, all the white cards are soldiers. So even if you have a bunch of wizards and rogues in other colours, it doesn't matter.

As for the other changes:

Mizzium Tank did nothing, Ox of Agonas could work in dredge decks.

Galvanic Blast is just a more synergetic Shock.

Masked Vandal is an iffy card. It has all creature types, which is great and it exiles, which I don't like. I hope its balanced by its awkard creature exile requirement and that it ends up being both versatile enough to justify and not annoying enough to turn into a exile-based naturalize.

Asmorano has been great. She's just a fun a card. Blazing Rootwalla is not the right cut but it's the most similar one so I wanted to try it.

Gala Greeters seems a good kind of good-stuff and early tests are positive.

Sedgemoor Witch should be in to promote spell-token archetypes. It has been in before and they should arise but they have often failed. Let's hope they end up working now.

Mox Diamond will be the best card in my cube. But it is a big driver of synergy builds so I think it's worth it.

I'm adding Underworld Cookbook in the hopes that its good enough to run on its own. So far I've seen several people make a good use of it just a discard outlet or with Urza so why not give it a whirl?

 

[Erik Twice]

Ok, question. If I want to boost storm, what do you think I could add to my list to make it more viable?

 

[sigh]

?

So like cheap recurrable spells that don't necessarily directly help "storming off" but can build an extra 1-3 spell casts if you need to squeeze some in.

Storm is just.... really hard to ever support.

 

[LadyMapi]

Yeah, the issue with Storm is that it's an all-in combo archetype. It's kinda like trying to support Tribal, but the tribe in question is kinda useless otherwise.

It's not that I don't think you can support it, but you'd need to do a lot more than just tossing a card or two into your cube. Storm is a structural thing.

 

[Nanonox]

With your current setup, I believe that storm is definitely possible to pull off, it just won't happen very often.

Storm decks are usually 3 components:
Win conditions, cards draw/tutoring engine and mana engine.

Your wincons are really solid with Brainfreeze, Tendrils of Agony and Thassa's Oracle.

You could add something like Hullbreaker Horror if you want to allow players to draft a reanimator/cheat storm variant to go with Niv-Mizzet, Parun. The Horror is actually castable at 7 mana, but is very powerful.

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Your engines seem great too. Yawgmoth's Will, Underworld Breach, Bolas's Citadel, Wheels among others. In addition to that, you have a lot of cheap/free cantrips to set up.

What you are missing are tutors IMO. You need things to go in a certain order to storm off, but it's tough without a lot of redundancy or tutors.



Seem like safe includes since they put you down a card, meaning not every deck is willing to take the card disadvantage.
You mentioned Dark Petition in another thread, which seems like a good fit as it isn’t easy to abuse early.

I dislike Diabolic Intent for the storm deck as they likely won’t have many creatures on board.

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As for your mana engines, Fastbond, Lion's Eye Diamond, Dark Ritual and Mox Diamond are top notch. I would look into swapping Gilded Lotus for something cheaper that the storm deck could use. Maybe Lotus Bloom?

Also if you want to lean in on the lands angle, Tireless Provisionner is a great one to boost your mana.

 

[Erik Twice]

Thanks for the thoughts guys! I've been tinkering with your suggestions a bit.

First, I really like Lotus Bloom. I tried it with low expectations, just because I like the design. And I discovered something pretty cool, which is that is it works in ramp. That makes it infinitely more versatile than most other fast mana. More importantly, it can be recurred with Renegade Railer, Goblin Welder and Tameshi. That means it's archetype support, but that it fits several archetypes instead of just storm.

I also went and added a very dangerous card, as a test:



Let's be clear, Grim Monolith is broken. Last time I had it in my cube it was the best card in it by a huge margin. But now, I'm not so sure. There are very few expensive cards in my cube that are worth ramping with it. From the top of my head, these are the only truly great targets for it:



Wildfire and Bolas's Citadels are the cards I want to support. I had noticed that Wildfire decks were increasingly uncommon and so were Citadel decks. Both archetypes should get a small boost from Monolith and I don't think it would make them unfair.

More worrysome are the titans, because they snowball. They will return a land to play when they hit the table and, if not immediately killed, may win you the game. This doesn't worry me too much for two reasons. The first is that the titans were kind of bad in my cube. They had their uses but they weren't really standout cards. Verdurous Gearhulk and Voracious Hydra are both better than the green titan, for example. The second is that, if they turn out too strong with Monolith, I can cut them.

Myr Battlesphere is the biggest colorless creature in my cube and I could see it being ramped out. But it costs seven, which delays it a turn and I don't think it will be a problem.

I've also noticed Grim Monolith could boost big UW control decks, which is another bonus. Those decks will try to ramp out Golos, Mindslaver or Noxious Gearhulk, all of which I'm comfortable which.

I also followed Nanonox's Advice and added:



Which seems like it could see play in more decks than Diabolic Intent, which was never really used. Sadly, it's not a cost reduction so it won't see play in low-curve spell decks.

 

[Erik Twice]

I went over my list and I have about 20 cards that aren't doing anything. I could see one easy cut in each colour, so I decided to reduce the cube's size by five:



The specialist didn't do anything, Cephalid Coliseum was just filler, as was the second Abundant Harvest. Mukotai Soulripper was worse than or mediocre in most decks and Avalanche Riders, while a cool card, I think is the easiest cut. I can see myself cutting Cursed Mirror (which is cool, but perhaps the slot is better in colorless ramp).

I've noticed that small changes in cube size have a big impact on the "quality feel" of a cube. So I'm inching closer to being satisfied with my current iteration of it