General Hooks for Drafting Aggro

[B8R]

I've been at the beginning stages of building a new cube from scratch, and with my limited time I've been just thinking and theorizing about two things: manabases and aggro.

Grillo's excellent article on aggro got me stewing about it even more, but I'm kind of stumped on one issue in the drafting part: Which cards are going to be the "hooks" that lure any given player to draft an aggro strategy?

I know one guy I draft with is just gonna force aggro most of the time because that's just how he rolls, but I'm thinking about it from a more neutral perspective. I'm trying to think of cards that will make me excited to draft aggro over x midrange card and y control card. Or, is aggro a strategy that you sort of backdoor your way into after taking a handful of midrange cards before jumping in, noticing that it's probably open?

If aggro cards are inherently less powerful than midrange cards, what would make you ever not take the latter? Even if I find some suitable aggro "hooks", will I have enough of them to compete with other archetypes?

From drafting the penny cube a couple of times, I can see that Goblin Bushwacker is one of those types of cards. In the average riptide cube though, what do we have? Is it the finisher cards? About the only non finisher card I can think of that would make me go into aggro p1p1 is Goblin Guide, but I haven't fully considered it yet. Even in other more powerful cubes the list is fairly short.

For the average "legacy" style cube I thought of:
Armageddon
Goblin Guide
Koth of the Hammer
Sulfuric Vortex
Wild Nacatl (maybe?)
Figure of Destiny (maybe?)
Geist of St. Traft
Grafted Wargear (maybe?)

Of course other cards like Path to Exile, Dismember, and planeswalkers like Elspeth, Knight Errant would also be good first picks to me, but they are less aggro specific. They're just good most everywhere.

So what makes a good aggro "hook" for you?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

If we talking higher power formats, I like this deck a lot. Lots of disruption, some double strike creatures to make up for lost time. It might be a little bit too high curve for you.

This is a really context specific question, because what you are really asking is what aggro cards feel powerful, and that will always vary.

Right now, I really like the idea of atarka's command, for example, though it requires you to support green aggro in some capacity, which might be tricky.

 

[kevin]

 

[B8R]

If we talking higher power formats, I like this deck a lot. Lots of disruption, some double strike creatures to make up for lost time. It might be a little bit too high curve for you.

This is a really context specific question, because what you are really asking is what aggro cards feel powerful, and that will always vary.

Right now, I really like the idea of atarka's command, for example, though it requires you to support green aggro in some capacity, which might be tricky.

Yes, it is a context specific question, and I'm looking at a power level that falls somewhere between the avg. 360 cube off of cubetutor and an avg. Waddell riptide special. I'm just trying to figure out how to get drafters to go down the path of aggro in their initial picks. I like Atarka's Command, that's a good one I hadn't thought of.

The more I am thinking about aggro in cube, the more questions and challenges seem to arise, from the question of how your aggro decks are going to function (curving out, vertical burst damage, horizontal expansions paired with anthems/overruns, evasive threats, disruptive elements, card and time recouping measures, etc) to the ripple effects it has on the rest of one's drafting/play environment (% of mana fixing, nature of mana fixing, cross-pollinating with other archetypes, poisony implications, etc)

@kevin
Thank you! I was mulling over the two curses as options, but the last two I had never considered!

 

[B8R]

If we talking higher power formats, I like this deck a lot. Lots of disruption, some double strike creatures to make up for lost time. It might be a little bit too high curve for you.

I like that deck a lot, but in this specific case I'm less interested in the aspects of it that you point out than the process of how it was actually drafted in the first place. All I can tell from the posts is that (maybe) this deck was a meta call, as he was reacting to the typical tendencies of current modo cubers and taking advantage of that info. Is aggro only a meta call though to prey on rigid thinking and predictable tendencies by the opponent(s)?

 

[safra]

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Generally, I get excited about any sort of burst damage option, so besides atarka's command, stuff like:



I also really like the idea of a suicide black deck, which I touched on at the end of that article, but I don't know how that would look in cube. Were that an option, especially with some hate bear pieces, I would go in on it. Bitterblossom and dark confidant feel like they would be exciting in that package.

Young pyromancer is another fun first pick.

One card that I really want to like, but never seems to work out for me in cube is hellrider. I would first pick that were it supported.

It might be a good idea to ask your friend for a list of favorite aggro cards?

 

[Dom Harvey]

I tend to look for:

- A card that will go in most decks of that colour/colour pair but fits nicely into an aggressive curve: Warden of the First Tree, Blade Splicer, Vendilion Clique
- A build-around card that can branch off into its own deck but is also solid in generic aggro: Boros Reckoner, Wild Mongrel
- A centrepiece for one or more of the themed aggro decks: Goblin Bombardment, Berserk, Curse of Predation

 

[Jason Waddell]

This is a great topic. Personally I don't consider something like Figure of Destiny to be a hook for aggro, but recently re-added Koth because I felt I didn't have enough incentives for players to go the beatdown route.

On a related note, if you envision X% of your environment being aggro decks, I think roughly X% of you 1st picks should be aggro cards. In practice that's a bit harder to define, because some of these cards fill multiple roles. e.g. Dark Confidant goes in an aggro deck a certain percentage of the time. If that percentage is 40%, then Dark Confidant contributes 0.4 to our "aggro first pick" tally.

 

[Eric Chan]

For me personally, these are the cards that would incentivize me to slant towards aggro during a draft; not necessarily because they're the most out-and-out powerful cards, but because they either offer interesting build-around potential, or are unique and fun:

 

[B8R]

This is a great topic. Personally I don't consider something like Figure of Destiny to be a hook for aggro, but recently re-added Koth because I felt I didn't have enough incentives for players to go the beatdown route.

On a related note, if you envision X% of your environment being aggro decks, I think roughly X% of you 1st picks should be aggro cards. In practice that's a bit harder to define, because some of these cards fill multiple roles. e.g. Dark Confidant goes in an aggro deck a certain percentage of the time. If that percentage is 40%, then Dark Confidant contributes 0.4 to our "aggro first pick" tally.

I think I agree about Figure after considering it. Actually, most of the first pick aggro cards that I consider really desirable have a common thread to them: they tend to be "finisher" type cards that are harder to interact with (Instant, Enchantment, Planeswalker, etc) than the average beater. The only exceptions that really stand out to me are Goblin Guide and Geist of St. Traft. Of course cards like Clique and Bob are great, but I'm just thinking of pure aggro cards in this case. There are some niche creatures that have an explosive "haste" ability like Sublime Archangel and Silverblade Paladin, too, but I tend to view them a cut below the harder to interact with effects.

I was nebulously thinking about seeding the cube with a certain % of these hooks, but you articulated it better than I. Thanks!

Big thank you to the feedback from everyone so far, it has given me lots of things to think about!

I would love to talk about some other aggro related topics, too, primarily the ones Grillo brought up in his article...

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Do you have a specific topic in mind?

I'm variously interested in that turn two aggro concept, and various disruptive tools. I think in general, in environments, the higher you go up the power spectrum, the more aggro takes on a disruptive identity.

 

[B8R]

Turn 2 aggro sounds great! What do you think of double strike, infect, reanimator, and storm? I know the latter 2 are classified as combo, but I see a lot of similarities between some combo and aggro strategies. How about having a generally large artifact section (kind of a sixth color) so that affinity is viable but not too poisony?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I don't really like infect. I've tried to come up with a lot of different ways to make it viable, but at the end of the day you really shouldn't be mixing a regular damage plan with an infect plan. The only exception to that I can think of would be maybe inkmoth nexus, because its such an incidental include, ormaybe, and I mean maybe viridian corrupter.

If you want to have a static damage increase on creatures, I think double strike is the way to go, but you want natively good double strike effects. Safe ones are all of those two power for three double strike creatures. If you feel like you have a good enough removal package, you could start looking at stuff like temur battle rage. The problem with instant speed double strike effects, is that anyone can grab them, and removal light decks tend to just get blown out by them.

If you're going higher power, like a signet based format, it might be fine to go with the expanded artifact section, but i.m.o. its probably best to start with a turn 2 aggro approach from slate, rather than directly porting affinity. Its kind of like how the cube analogue to infect should be double strike, you want to think of a different explosive aggro strategy that requires some early setup.

Exactly what they would be I can't think of off hand, because the only two obvious examples are poor cube ports (affinity and boggles). Thats doesn't mean there isn't something out there: a lot of constructed disruption adapts poorly to cube, but the stompyesque temp hexproof/protection disruption was a home run for me. We could just be approaching the problem from the wrong direction.

By reanimator do you mean recursive aggro? As in you are overloading an opposing removal suite with recursive threats like gravecrawler/champion?

And storm, I assume you mean stuff like prowess? I found that a lot harder to include, just because cube tends to be so creature focused. I suppose that might be a blue archetype with stuff like distortion strike and counterspells for disruption. I think I would want a better idea of the format before I started making recommendations. It might be better to look at white as the linchpin for that deck?

 

[Ferritovore]

We "downgraded" infect to Wither in my first cube before I removed all the infect and dissassembled it until such time as it may be reborn. It kinda worked.

 

[Lucre]

Often I'll take bolt or path first pick comfortable in the knowledge that I will get enough 1 and 2 drop idiots to attack you to death with. I guess you can always lose to draws but that's what you get for playing an aggro deck without sufficient nods to card selection, plus the more ubiquitous cards like finks, stoneforge, chain lightning, shriekmaw or blade splicers you pick up the worse off your opponents are! They might even need to pick up some of your stupid 2drop attackers!

Oh wasteland is fair too but Chris cubes like 14 of them so I tend to take it later.

I remember some pro magic player's quote about playing white weenie was that you wanted to have at least 2/3 wasteland, stripmine, mana tithe. Not sure how the mileage on that adage goes in riptide cube but you see where he's getting at right?

 

[B8R]

@Grillo,
Thanks for the food for thought. I was just throwing ideas at a wall to see if anything stuck, it wasn't deeply considered yet!

I was just looking at the similar spells of infect and double strike that they both covet (pump/pro) and thought they might be buddies. Although standing side by side it's clear that double strike is the "little" buddy...

Reanimator? I guess the recursive type, ya, but I was also just thinking t1 Faithless Looting t2 Reanimate Griselbrand, go... I know that kind of thing is super powerful but at this stage I'm considering anything.

Storm--I saw CalebD draft a cool BW Token/Tendrils deck on CFB that had half storm spells--tendrils, rocks, rituals, card draw, and the other half midrange you orzhov cards like Lilliana, Sorin, Bitterblossom, Dismember, Discard,etc... His deck was sweet and made a nice impression.
The other thought I had in storm was, yes, prowess, especially with Jeskai Ascendancy. Dorks/Creature lands and cantrips, etc.

Anyway, you mentioned your hesitation in recommending anything without knowledge of the format, but I don't have a format yet! Or established power level, or anything! I'm starting at ground zero and just brainstorming ideas, and I started with manabases and aggro strategies. Is this approach foolish you think? Is there a better angle to take in initial formation?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I wouldn't say its foolish, it just makes it a little harder to recomend cards and have the recomendations work out. Fabled hero, silverblade paladin, and miran crusader, for example, kind of represent three different formats. Assault strobe and temur battle rage belong in different worlds as well, for the most part.

I really dont like linear non-interactive varients of ramp or reanimator or storm in cube, without the fair decks having access to reasonable disruption. Though this is, again, a power question, and what type of environment you want to encourage. Otherwise value varients of those decks are pretty reasonable.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

This really feels like something that forces you to take a look at your entire cube and answer questions about what the other strategies are doing. How do your good stuff midrange decks look? Gimmicky synergy decks? Wrath of God into Sphinx Control? And then decide on what a fun way to attack them is. Probably the boring answer is; make sure there are enough good aggro specific cards and that theres some bonus for assembling the deck like recurring grawlers or playing a bunch of cantrips with prowess guys.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Often I'll take bolt or path first pick comfortable in the knowledge that I will get enough 1 and 2 drop idiots to attack you to death with. I guess you can always lose to draws but that's what you get for playing an aggro deck without sufficient nods to card selection, plus the more ubiquitous cards like finks, stoneforge, chain lightning, shriekmaw or blade splicers you pick up the worse off your opponents are! They might even need to pick up some of your stupid 2drop attackers!

Oh wasteland is fair too but Chris cubes like 14 of them so I tend to take it later.

I remember some pro magic player's quote about playing white weenie was that you wanted to have at least 2/3 wasteland, stripmine, mana tithe. Not sure how the mileage on that adage goes in riptide cube but you see where he's getting at right?

I cube 4 at 450, 1 per 100 rounded down, same as everyone else here! The reason you keep wheeling them is because you and I seem to be the only ones who realize wasteland isn't a sorcery you're forced to use.

 

[Lucre]

I cube 4 at 450, 1 per 100 rounded down, same as everyone else here! The reason you keep wheeling them is because you and I seem to be the only ones who realize wasteland isn't a sorcery you're forced to use.

I was just kidding!

 

[Chris Taylor]

Maybe I should have added a in there somewhere

 

[B8R]

This really feels like something that forces you to take a look at your entire cube and answer questions about what the other strategies are doing. How do your good stuff midrange decks look? Gimmicky synergy decks? Wrath of God into Sphinx Control? And then decide on what a fun way to attack them is. Probably the boring answer is; make sure there are enough good aggro specific cards and that theres some bonus for assembling the deck like recurring grawlers or playing a bunch of cantrips with prowess guys.

I like this approach, but I don't even have the midrange and control strategies created yet! I'm literally just starting from scratch and thinking about how I want my aggro decks to be. And Gravecrawlers are nice and all, but in p1p1 my drafters are not going to take that over the average midrange card under normal conditions. I'm looking for those specific aggro cards (like you mention) that are special enough to tempt someone to go down that road. Like a Sulfuric Vortex or something. I know that's a card that most riptiders eschew because it's hard to beat, but you gotta admit it catches the eye and screams pick me! right out of the gate. I'm looking to assemble a critical mass of these type of attention getters to make sure that aggro gets its due in my playgroup. I forgot to mention that my playgroup is extremely midrange/value oriented in previous cube drafts and that's why I'm giving this special consideration.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

What are you imagining as being sort of the apex cards? That goes a long way to establishing the power feel of the cards you want to use as incentives.

 

[yan]

Often I'll take bolt or path first pick comfortable in the knowledge that I will get enough 1 and 2 drop idiots to attack you to death with. I guess you can always lose to draws but that's what you get for playing an aggro deck without sufficient nods to card selection, plus the more ubiquitous cards like finks, stoneforge, chain lightning, shriekmaw or blade splicers you pick up the worse off your opponents are! They might even need to pick up some of your stupid 2drop attackers!

Oh wasteland is fair too but Chris cubes like 14 of them so I tend to take it later.

I remember some pro magic player's quote about playing white weenie was that you wanted to have at least 2/3 wasteland, stripmine, mana tithe. Not sure how the mileage on that adage goes in riptide cube but you see where he's getting at right?

yep theres so many good cards in cube dont need a bomb. if u add sulfuric vortex the blue one is true name nemesis
i like these.

birds of paradise
noble heirarch
garruk wildspeaker
lingering souls
mirror entity
glen elendra. stack with spell pierce, negate, stratus dancer
goblin rabblemaster