Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Well, okay, I was talking about red aggro in particular. I'll concede that white or black aggro decks can usually deal with the first fatty that comes down. Burn is just dead to a Frost Titan though.
Card/Deck Green Noncreature Spells
- Thread starter Diakonov
- Start date
Yeah, I banned Coalition Relic long ago. Like you said, turn four Inferno Titans meant that midrange - especially of the Jund variety - became the king of the roost too easily. I haven't missed it since I cut it.
Growth Spasm sounds like a good suggestion - thanks!
Growth Spasm sounds like a good suggestion - thanks!
lol thankfully we run good fixin!
Oh man this reminds me of the the time I beat a Sol Ring'd Frost Titan in RuDW with Phantasmal Image.
Fuck I love frosty, miss playing with that card. Him and Tammy are my favourite blue fatties. I feel like the 2dimensional RDW should have a rough time if the stars align for you and you get your best draw against them, but thankfully eric doesn't cube sixes that are that impactful when they come down. He's really into souls now if I remember correctly.
Oh man this reminds me of the the time I beat a Sol Ring'd Frost Titan in RuDW with Phantasmal Image.
Fuck I love frosty, miss playing with that card. Him and Tammy are my favourite blue fatties. I feel like the 2dimensional RDW should have a rough time if the stars align for you and you get your best draw against them, but thankfully eric doesn't cube sixes that are that impactful when they come down. He's really into souls now if I remember correctly.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Sure. I just don't feel that drawing your supercharged mana rock qualifies as the stars aligning. Skipping two turns in mana development at the "cost" of one card turns a fine cube draft into the battle cruiser Magic we all know and love from Commander. Oh, except only one player gets to run the mana rocks, the other one just brought a knife to a gunfight.
I also dislike it when people call red decks two-dimensional. People tend to mix up decision density and decision complexity with decision meaningfulness. Whereas a mistake with a control deck can often be repaired because you're aiming for the long game, a mistake with an aggro deck can often cost you the game. Contrary to popular belief, you will actually get better results with a red deck if you use your brain.
I don't know anything about commander actually I made a sisay deck in like 2006 but that was the limit of my experience with that. I know a lot about cube though because I think I've been cubing since long before that.
When i say stars aligning I tend to mean that blue decks that are creating the situation you are describing don't always have a tonne of ways to take advantage of six mana in a way as impactful as how you are describing. An Aetherling etc will not cut it in it's place and many of you riptiders are totally off 1 and 2cc super relevant answers so even say dropping a main phase venser and trying to hold something might not be that amazing. Eric is right about the fire titan but you guys are already talking about adding two-pip accelerators and realistically how likely is it that a non-green deck is going to have the fire titan and the sole relic out of 400 cards and then by turn 3 consistently? We can ask jason if he ever posts again. But like yes ruining the aggro decks day before it could ruin yours because you had two specific cards in your hand does usually feel like the stars aligning when I get to do it. I dunno about you.
When i say stars aligning I tend to mean that blue decks that are creating the situation you are describing don't always have a tonne of ways to take advantage of six mana in a way as impactful as how you are describing. An Aetherling etc will not cut it in it's place and many of you riptiders are totally off 1 and 2cc super relevant answers so even say dropping a main phase venser and trying to hold something might not be that amazing. Eric is right about the fire titan but you guys are already talking about adding two-pip accelerators and realistically how likely is it that a non-green deck is going to have the fire titan and the sole relic out of 400 cards and then by turn 3 consistently? We can ask jason if he ever posts again. But like yes ruining the aggro decks day before it could ruin yours because you had two specific cards in your hand does usually feel like the stars aligning when I get to do it. I dunno about you.
I'm not sure what you think I mean by two dimensional because I'm mainly talking about the draft reading and picking up cards for it. I'll tell you the other time I beat an early frost titan in a red deck it was also off a blue splash and involved carefully waiting and sacrificing resources to cast my time twister effects to re use burn spells off a thinned deck. Red decks can have a lot of play to them but they also have a lot more potential to take early games than say your blue deck does through hoping to draw it's one relevant six drop and it's one powerful accelerater before they've been attacked for 2 and 3 too many times. Please give me some credit bootman.
Common cube red decks are usually built for the first 4 turns to be where they create a problem and try to take away your ability to respond to it properly (or rarely are built to recover after burning their whole hand) they have deeper decisions than that but most of the deck is built to fit within that main paradigm and give your opponent as little of a game as possible.
There are red midranged or "ponza" decks (to my older magicians) but they tend to still have a strong early game and capitalize on the fact that you will not have the life by the midgame to survive the inevitability hasted dragons and removal spells that can kill your opponent bring to the table.
Yes red is awesome because it can play for a whole game (unlike some other aggro decks) but your ideal game you don't really have to and your opponent feels like they're up shit creek by turn 4.
Common cube red decks are usually built for the first 4 turns to be where they create a problem and try to take away your ability to respond to it properly (or rarely are built to recover after burning their whole hand) they have deeper decisions than that but most of the deck is built to fit within that main paradigm and give your opponent as little of a game as possible.
There are red midranged or "ponza" decks (to my older magicians) but they tend to still have a strong early game and capitalize on the fact that you will not have the life by the midgame to survive the inevitability hasted dragons and removal spells that can kill your opponent bring to the table.
Yes red is awesome because it can play for a whole game (unlike some other aggro decks) but your ideal game you don't really have to and your opponent feels like they're up shit creek by turn 4.
Yeah, calling aggro "mindless" or the equivalent is a common mistake made by people who don't play aggro decks much. I think PV said it best in a recent article - aggro involves just as many decisions as any other archetype, only that they tend to all be crammed into the early game. Sequencing is extremely important, as is knowing what to play around, and what to play for off the top of your deck. Because all of these decisions are crunched into a few turns, it can appear mindless, when it's often the opposite. The ramifications of making a mistake at any point in the decision tree tend to be larger, too, even if the results may not manifest themselves for a few turns.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Apologies Lucre, I have been in one too many "red is for n00bs, blue is the only color in Magic" discussion plus I sometimes seem to misinterpret your posts. I think it's your writing style that throws me for a loop 
Nothing personal, my internal parser just doesn't always work. I always have the feeling I come off more condescending than I mean to be, which is why I regularly include smilies to make sure people get that I'm saying things in jest / giving an honest opinion rather than bashing someone for no good reason. Communicating without facial expressions is hard.
Also, I was being ironic about Commander. I love commander, but I don't want my cube drafts to be like commander games, i.e. the constant ramping into haymakers. Relic is obviously not quite as egregious as Sol Ring, but the jump from 3 mana to 6 mana is still huge. I've been unhappy with its impact on games, and therefore it got cut. Like Chris, I really haven't missed it at all, and I even think my cube has become more fun to draft because of this decision. In the last update I cut Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox as well, and that too has made games progress at a more pleasant pace with less blowouts caused by a disparity in the amount of available mana.
Nothing personal, my internal parser just doesn't always work. I always have the feeling I come off more condescending than I mean to be, which is why I regularly include smilies to make sure people get that I'm saying things in jest / giving an honest opinion rather than bashing someone for no good reason. Communicating without facial expressions is hard.Also, I was being ironic about Commander. I love commander, but I don't want my cube drafts to be like commander games, i.e. the constant ramping into haymakers. Relic is obviously not quite as egregious as Sol Ring, but the jump from 3 mana to 6 mana is still huge. I've been unhappy with its impact on games, and therefore it got cut. Like Chris, I really haven't missed it at all, and I even think my cube has become more fun to draft because of this decision. In the last update I cut Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox as well, and that too has made games progress at a more pleasant pace with less blowouts caused by a disparity in the amount of available mana.
I'm... I'm not Chris!
But yeah, Coalition Relic kind of puts anything - everything! - in green to shame. Growth Spasm, for one. I think it's fine in higher power environments, where green is doing things more unfair than Rampant Growth. But in lower power environments, the colourless ramp & fixing that Relic provides is miles better than pretty much everything else, green or otherwise.
But yeah, Coalition Relic kind of puts anything - everything! - in green to shame. Growth Spasm, for one. I think it's fine in higher power environments, where green is doing things more unfair than Rampant Growth. But in lower power environments, the colourless ramp & fixing that Relic provides is miles better than pretty much everything else, green or otherwise.
I dunno I think of them as sorta doing more or less the same thing. I generally feel like it's a 3 mana omnirock that gives you an 1 point ritual. I think I can count on one hand the number of times the 2x production has been relevant to me besides it's first use.
Eric another idea for the mana boost might be that awful new green siege card. I think it gives you two instances of GG every turn, which is more fun if you have mana sinks / card draw.
Eric another idea for the mana boost might be that awful new green siege card. I think it gives you two instances of GG every turn, which is more fun if you have mana sinks / card draw.
Goddamnit, y'all are selling me on the green siege. Stop that.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ugh. Page breaks and sleepy eyes. Sorry
Don't forget about this guy.
Here's another double-ramp I've been having fun with.
Also, since Lucre brought it up, how have the 6-drop Souls been working out for you? Grave Titan has been gone for a while but some of the others have been concerning me a bit.
How would people rank the Titans by strength? I would venture:
Grave
Inferno
Frost
Sun
Primeval
People have hesitated to take them but after someone 'manned up' (his name is Steven Mann) and wrecked someone's day with their flashback abilities they have been pretty popular. Doing anything out of the yard is actually a huge plus since your big/big idiot is extremely likely to eat a nuke.
And soul of zendikar's promo art makes it a lot easier to stomach.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Holy crap this thread exploded.
Eric: Growth Spasm is probably the most fair of the above, and has been good. Joraga Treespeaker can fit into this spot on the curve too, and overgrowth plays well (maybe too well) with the arbor elfs you're running IIRC?
I'd use growth spasm if you want people to get to 6-7, and overgrowth if you're feeling more 8-X spell inclined.
A nice stopgap between Coalition Relic and everything else has been worn powerstone for me. Adding colorless is a real downside.
Titans by strength:
Grave > Inferno > Sun = Frost > Primeval, though primeval's value goes up a lot of you have volrath's stronghold specifically, and certain cards like bone shredder make sun titan truely beastly. Vigilance is big on him.
Eric: Growth Spasm is probably the most fair of the above, and has been good. Joraga Treespeaker can fit into this spot on the curve too, and overgrowth plays well (maybe too well) with the arbor elfs you're running IIRC?
I'd use growth spasm if you want people to get to 6-7, and overgrowth if you're feeling more 8-X spell inclined.
A nice stopgap between Coalition Relic and everything else has been worn powerstone for me. Adding colorless is a real downside.
Titans by strength:
Grave > Inferno > Sun = Frost > Primeval, though primeval's value goes up a lot of you have volrath's stronghold specifically, and certain cards like bone shredder make sun titan truely beastly. Vigilance is big on him.