FlowerSunRain's Cube

Chris Taylor · May 19, 2014

FlowerSunRain said:
I completely forgot evasive action existed. Good thing I checked the draft deck thread. That's the final 2 mana counterspell I wanted.

I kinda don't understand you guys

Mana leak seems like the last thing I would want to complicate in my draft enviornment. You don't need a huge X to make it good, as 2-3 usually does fine.

Like why not miscalculation or something with a more useful additional angle? Or condescend?

At least with tribal flames I get it, 5 >>>>>>> 3, but here it's kinda not

FlowerSunRain · May 19, 2014

The domain aspect here is to temper the card's impact, not enhance it. I'll probably end up dropping it if the card ends up just being mana leak.

Chris Taylor · May 19, 2014

FlowerSunRain said:
The domain aspect here is to temper the card's impact, not enhance it. I'll probably end up dropping it if the card ends up just being mana leak.

Is the idea to prefer cancel+ as the default counterspell?

Dom Harvey · May 28, 2014

Have you found any more incentives for enchantment-based decks in green/black/red yet?

FlowerSunRain · May 28, 2014

Dom Harvey said:
Have you found any more incentives for enchantment-based decks in green/black/red yet?

Green is an amazing support color for enchantments, with the enchantress card advantage engine being able to bury people. Rancor is rancor, my reworked oakborn dryads are strong and ancestral mask is available if the theme needs a kick.

Black gets Underworld Coinsmith, Grim Guardian and Doomwake Giant which are a good suite of constellations plus pharika to get triggers. They also have a nice suite of heroic creatures.

Red basically has Forgeborn Oreads (weak), Mark of Fury (weak) and the doublestrike dudes (pretty decent). I really don't see any way to tie it deeper sans making a "lightning rift/ion storm" style incentive card that triggers on playing enchantments.

Riptide Chimera plus Galvanic Arc is beast, though

I was thinking of slipping in Faith Healer or Auratog for giggles, but I think that's too narrow.

FlowerSunRain · May 29, 2014

Everflame -> Arena Athlete ??

FlowerSunRain · Jun 3, 2014

After getting in 2 full and a partial draft this week with a handful of new players, I got some great feedback on my cube. I'll be looking carefully at exact numbers, but attrition is definitely being cut. It was just too easy to get an engine going, particularly with vampiric tutor, which also might get the axe. I'll be looking towards either Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebus to get a similar, but more restrictive effect at a better cost. Specifically, with attrition the player was able to create a loop with no sac outlet and target the best creature, while Grave Pact and Dictate both require an outlet and let the opponent mitigate the damage with token producers. Grave Pact is also another black devotion best friend.

I also think certain niches might be oversupported, so there will be some shifts.

I was happy to see white/blue heroic was not the best deck again.

The two winning decks contained all 5 colors and represented polar opposite gameplans, which was pretty cool.

+1/+1 counter theme is amazingly flexible, completely non-poisonous and fun, I couldn't be happier with it.

The enchantment theme is probably a touch too blunt and might get scaled back a touch.

Green Devotion came together very nicely. I saw Reverent Hunter from 5/5 to 8/8!!! Nylea is still sweet and Pharika is a nice new option.

Lifegain seemed powerful, but a little unstable. However, pridemate was really strong and I'm not sure doubling it is the best solution. Might need a custom card. Survival Cache seemed a little weak.

I think all of the custom cards are pushed to the right level.

Rancor was a little bit nuts, not sure if that's a necessary evil.

Chris Taylor · Jun 3, 2014

What are the cards for the +1+1 could term theme? I tried volt charges but they weren't quite cutting the mustard.

Also: do you have a custom card gallery? I wanna check yours out

FlowerSunRain · Jun 3, 2014

Cards that care about +1/+1 counters: Ion Storm, Cytoplast Root-Kin, Volt Charge, Thrummingbird, Tezzeret's Gambit, Rage Forger (custom), Oona's Blackguard, the phantoms (sort of), Solidarity of Heroes, Give // Take, Sage of Hours, Fathom Mage and as of next week, Marchesa, the Black Rose.

My customs are literally sharpied onto existing cards, usually changing a casting cost, adding a keyword or changing a couple of words. I don't have a gallery, but when I get a minute I will create a summary.

FlowerSunRain · Jun 4, 2014

No one is willing to touch Duskmantle Seer with a ten foot pole, not sure if that is player error or he just sucks.

Whitewater Naiads, though, definitely suck. Could be playable at 4? Maybe Thasa needs another run?

Thoughtrender Lamia might get a nod over Doomwake Giant.

Eric Chan · Jun 4, 2014

FlowerSunRain said:
No one is willing to touch Duskmantle Seer with a ten foot pole, not sure if that is player error or he just sucks.

Could be a little from column A and a little from column B... U/B tempo very rarely came together here, though in the very few occasions that it did, Duskmantle Seer would have been excellent. Still probably not worth a precious gold slot though.

ahadabans · Jun 5, 2014

Eric Chan said:
Could be a little from column A and a little from column B... U/B tempo very rarely came together here, though in the very few occasions that it did, Duskmantle Seer would have been excellent. Still probably not worth a precious gold slot though.

Exactly this. I tested him and he's good. But in essentially one deck only. And while he's great in that deck, it didn't feel solid enough to justify a gold slot. I will use mono colored slots for narrow arch type support, but I have a hard time doing it with gold slots (of which there are precious few) unless the card is so awesome that it will push guys into the color combination.

Chris Taylor · Jun 5, 2014

If only he were mono black eh?

ahadabans · Jun 6, 2014

Chris Taylor said:
If only he were mono black eh?

I'd totally run him if he were.

FlowerSunRain · Jun 6, 2014

I added current custom text to the first post. Renowned Weaver, Springjack Shepard, Spellstutter sprite and Academy Raider are currently in the experimental phase, but Raider at least is probably a shoe in.

Dom Harvey · Jun 7, 2014

Apologies for the constant questions, but do you have a sample list for UW Heroic? It's hard to get a sense of what the deck might look like without a list in front of me.

Also, thoughts on

FlowerSunRain · Jun 7, 2014

Something like this won a draft in December (NOT EXACT BY ANY MEANS OR AN IDEAL BUILD, but you can probably get the general idea. It probably had one more 1 drop somehow)

FlowerSunRain · Jun 7, 2014

Also, Zur seems pretty damn amazing. I now am running one 3 color card, so maybe I could make it 2, he's pretty spot on, though its red that really needs to connect to the enchantment theme.

ahadabans · Jun 9, 2014

FlowerSunRain said:
Also, Zur seems pretty damn amazing. I now am running one 3 color card, so maybe I could make it 2, he's pretty spot on, though its red that really needs to connect to the enchantment theme.

If you have enough support, Zur is really good. I had a really fun casual constructed deck with him in it and he was an all-star. So many cool things you can fetch (all the seals, prison term was a personal fav).

FlowerSunRain · Jun 11, 2014

My current watchlist:

Weathered Wayfairer
Springjack Pasture (cc= 2W)

~~Dakra Mystic~~
Hour of Need
Mana Breach

~~Coffin Queen~~
Krovikan Horror
Thoughtrender Lamia
Unearth
~~Curse of Shallow Graves~~

~~Eidolon of the Great Revel~~
Forgeborn Oreads

Hero of Leina Tower
Phantom Nantuko

Fathom Mage

Alfonzo Bonzo · Jun 11, 2014

That watch list seems reasonable. Surprised to see curse of shallow graves on there though?

FlowerSunRain · Jun 11, 2014

Yeah, Curse of Shallow Graves has been good, but I'm not sure it serves a purpose. Might be better as seal of doom to further cement black as control and give enchantress decks a tool they need more.

Actually I had been thinking about it, and I'm not sure that Edge of Autumn serves much of a purpose either. With mana elves, sakura tribe elder, wall of roots and wild growths, skipping from 2-4 is pretty well covered and cultivate and overgrowth gets us to the big green dudes by securing 2 mana drops, which Edge of Autumn doesn't help do. Edge of Autumn is an interesting card that doesn't seem to be doing anything interesting and seems to exist because "green needs to hit a ramp quota" but something else could probably do it better and have some kind of interesting use in another deck to go with it. Priest of Titiana might even be god here. Or Squirrel Nest!

FlowerSunRain · Jun 16, 2014

I made some changes.

Reverse Watch List

Seal of Doom
Bile Blight
Jaya Ballard (Change Pyroblast to destroy artifact?)
Sylvan Safekeeper (Green aura support)
Triton Shorethief
Priest of Titiana (I don't run enough elves, though)
Garruk Wildspeaker (Power level concerns, Garruk + Overgrowth = ???)
A Big Blue Dude
Doomwake Giant
Engineered Explosives
Moment's Peace

Consider

Editting Oona's Blackguard to remove the "rogue" line. It hasn't happened, but bitterblossom doesn't need a buff.
Making Thoughtrender Lamia 5/4. It doesn't need to get killed by x/3s and die to Chain Lightning/Fiery Temper, does it?

Take my own advice

As I posted on Diaknov's thread about look at redundancy, I want to look if some of my more eccentric archetypes are oversupported. Sometimes there seem to be too many combat tricks in the pools, for example and a couple might need to get pruned.