Innistrad Themed Cube: 360 Unpowered

Great to see more people take an interest in this cube! The more minds we gather the better it gets.
Regarding the colorless sacrifice outlets i was kind of looking at Rakdos Riteknife but realized it is like Blade of the bloodchief only worse. There are a number of ways to fix it since i like the second ability but if we are going the way of custom cards i think we can do better.

I was thinking about the multicolor section and while you said that all the guilds seem fine now i find it hard to define a few of them.
Like what is RW all about? It looks aggressive but there isn't really all that much synergy there other than that a few of the good aggressive red cards happen to be humans so some of the white human synergies come into play.

Or how about UG, does it do anything other than spider spawning?
I'm not sure what to cut to make room to define these but overall the black seem overrepresented in the multicolor section.

I like the defining of RG you draw up with Polis crusher and Zhur-Taa Swine. Big dumb guys with trample really scream RG. =)

Another thing, I am thinking of cutting one Ghoulcaller's bell in favor of a Codex Shredder. Mostly because I want to avoid breaking singleton where available but also to see which one my players like the most.
 
Also, looking through the artifacts available how about Deathrender? It looks like an excellent boost for reanimator decks since they can just play this, equip it to some weakling and chump to get their big fatty into play.
While this may seem powerful you said it yourself that reanimator decks are kind of few and far between in this cube because let's face it, outside the eldrazi we don't really have all that many reanimator targets worth mentioning.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah, I really like both of those lists. I like how you added the counters theme into green. Data from the grid cube is also actually really helpful, since certain interactions are more likely to come up there. How has crystal ball, the delve cards, and pelakka wurm been? It looks like the most significant difference between your list and mine, is that I run lim-dul's vault, which has a pretty big impact on how certain decks come together. Also, no lab maniac. I like the shard/wedge approach, though I am a bit surprised that BUG isn't one of the wedges.

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R/W base decks come together pretty often. Sometimes they are very aggressive, other times more aggro-control, and last week we even had a R/W sacrifice deck of all things. Its already a very good color combination with a lot of depth to it. Cards like fiend hunter and banisher priest give it control elements; rally the peasents, champion of the parish, and silveblade paladin give it explosive plays; Sun titan provides raw power and gather is synergistic both with the humans theme and the red sac. outlets. When you start throwing in red burn, red card draw, sac. outlets, threaten effects, and stromkirk noble, you end up with a very flexible draft archetype that can run the full gambit between aggro and control depending on what it gets in the draft. It even has access to synergistc mass removal in the form of temblor (white can usually grow its creatures out of range).

The thing with UG is that the vast majority of its gold cards throughout magic's history were designed to be tempo cards (mystic snake) or creature growth cards (master biomancer), so it can be a bit hard to find good gold graveyard cards compared with the other colors. UG has a lot of stuff going on with it though: spider spawning, lab maniac, wurm harvest, skaab ruinator ect. While it ends up generally splashing black at some point (usually because of vault), I don't feel that undermines the decks, since the cube's color fixing is good, so thats to be expected. Base UG is still a popular color combination, since a lot of the exotic interactions are UG interactions, and it has the best self-mill cards. And I think thats where a lot of its identity comes from: being a major part of the "unfair" wedge, or the self-mill color combination.

That being said, I agree that there is some room for black cuts in the multi-color section. I was thinking perhaps grisly salvage could go for one of the gruul cards i've been thinking about, since I think its a bit too narrow.

The things I really like about ghoulcaller's bell is the 1 CMC, and the fact it forces everyone to mill a card. That being said, the more data I can get the better. How is mesmeric orb?

The problem I always had with deathrender (conceptually), was that it always seemed miserable if it and the eldrazi ended up in the same deck. I wish they had more equipment that had some sort of interesting status effect on them, like the swords do, but not so OP and running protection. Deathrender seems pretty close to that, but it seems like such an easy combo to setup that I don't know if it would be fun or not.
 
Yeah, I really like both of those lists. I like how you added the counters theme into green. Data from the grid cube is also actually really helpful, since certain interactions are more likely to come up there. How has crystal ball, the delve cards, and pelakka wurm been? It looks like the most significant difference between your list and mine, is that I run lim-dul's vault, which has a pretty big impact on how certain decks come together. Also, no lab maniac. I like the shard/wedge approach, though I am a bit surprised that BUG isn't one of the wedges.

Crystal Ball has not seen too much play yet, but it feels like if you are able to invest the initial mana and plan on playing a long game anyway, it will provide some pretty good advantage. I think Jason.compared it to M15 Jace's +1.
The delve cards have been quite awewome. They are not very strong in the first few turns in decks that don't really focus on selfmill but have a pretty big impact later on/when you're behind. Murderous Cut is one of the best removal spells in my cube and in games that go long I've been able to play it 2+ times.
Pelakka Wurm has been in my cubes for a long time as I've always wanted a rewarding card for ramp/reanimaton. It has turned around quite a number of games when cast as the life gain often mattered. I'm not sure how good it is in the shard cube though.
Lim-Dul's Vault is awesome and will probably go back in the shard cube asap.
Regarding the shard cube, BUG not being one of the 3-color combinations was a mistake I realised only after putting it together, so it'll take some time to readjust :D
How does Worm Harvest play in your cube? It's a card I might actually consider.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Worm Harvest is very strong. It can serve as a win condition, alt. win condition, or a stablizing piece. Because it has retrace, you can just self-mill to find it or gifts ungiven to get it in the yard, and it has a ton of interesting interactions in the ghoulcaller's bell/lim-dul's vault cat and mouse games.

We've also had some decks built almost exclusively around worm harvest, which are very interesting. Spider spawning forces you to go with a very creature heavy build, but worm harvest allows you to build a very creature light BUG control deck, focused on self-mill instants/sorceries, self-mill creatures, instant/sorcery answers (preferably with flashback), and maybe a few delvers if you can pick them up. You also have access to vault for library manipulation, the strongest graveyard answers in the format, and the ability to disrupt an opponent's library manipulation (bell/memory's journey). The deck has explosive starts with a flipped delver, or can play the long game and just worm harvest them to death.
 
I can't really comment on Mesmeric orb since it didn't come up the only time i've played the cube but I like it in theory at least.

Another thing that I thought of today is this:
With such a small cube as this we need to get the most out of every slot and because of this cards like Manic Vandal and Kor Sanctifiersbug me a little. It just seems they do very little to deserve their slot. Sure they are creatures that act as a Shatter/Disenchant but that's it. I had a bit of a crazy idea to try to rectify this. How about we cut both the vandals and the sanctifiers and put in a copy of Duergar Hedge-Mage? The red side is basically not affected at all and the white only loose their ability to kill artefacts with it but that was mostly a red effect and they still have Devout Witness, Unexpectedly Absent and Oblivion ring to do that. Sure the sanctifiers have an extra point of toughness but this way we open up an entire slot to put in whatever without really effecting either of the colours very much! We could either use the slot for a red creature (perhaps a vampire like Crossway Vampire) or a white card of any sort (what needs more support?).
I can admit that it hurts the four- and five colour decks but the mana fixing is really good so any other deck that wants this effect can probably get the two lands of the appropriate colour.

So what do you guys think? Am I missing something here or is this just as good as it seems?
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Hmmm....the truth is...I have no idea lol.

Here is the thing, I have been running a very similar af/enchantment destruction package for well over a year at this point, across this cube and my old cube. Really, the important thing is having a certain density of those effects: you want to minimize the number of times where the packs break in a way where people are left feeling helpless against cards like homicidal seclusion or bonehoard. In addition, because I run Pod, there is an added incentive to have these cards be able to fit on the pod chain.

When I first ran the cube, I actually went down on the number of ETB artifact kills guys, and had people complain about it. Thats why I run both Keldon and maniac vandals now, rather than just one of them. The trick is, if of course, that no one wants to draft and play dedicated enchantment/artifact cards like disenchant. Cards like oblivion ring, while flexible, suffer from the problem of being too flexible: since they are occupying a creature answer slot in the deck (as well as being an enchantment/artifact answer) they often times just get used as simple creature removal.

So i'm really hinging on a few cards to fill that dedicated artifact/enchantment role without being too terrible. Both vandals are respectable picks, and generally go into the sorts of decks that the green artifact/enchantment answers do not fit into (e.g. R/W/x). A G/x deck tends to have a lot of choices.

So...I could run the hedge mage for all of the reasons you suggested. The main issue with it is that its not really splashable in the way the vandals are. The other big question though, is if I want to go -1 in white for artifact/enchantment removal. I don't really like sanctifiers: they are not a pod target, they are a 3 drop (4 with kicker) and I don't want more white 3s. The reason that they are there is that I can't find anything better to fill that role.

It also hasn't been a very high pick. Vandals is sort of the finishing touch for a lot of decks, but sanctifiers has not filled that role in any deck. I could see just cutting it completly, or cutting it and vandal and running hedge-mage, or even just leaving it as is. Not sure.

If I were to replace any of them, I would be inclined to run some sort of combat trick. Its possible I might want to leave it as is if there is a better multi-color combat trick I could run in the multi-color section. Wild hunger was a lot of fun this weekend.
 
I think I will try out the following and see how it goes and will re-evaluate if my players complain about insufficient artifact destruction.
Manic Vandal->Duergar Hedge-Mage

Now for the sanctifiers slot I am considering putting in one of the following. Not sure which one but I have always liked combat tricks that permanently buff your guy and since this is mostly a cube of low to middle power creatures I like it as a way to power through the opposition. Any thoughts?
Test of faith Feat of Resistance
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Test of faith looks super sweet, and I had no idea that card existed. It also looks like a complete beating.

I really don't know much about combat tricks, since most cubes traditionally can't run them due to the removal strength.
 
I agree about the scarcity of combat tricks in cube but i think it might work here since the tricks are really efficient and the removal is somewhat toned down compared to most cubes.
Test of faith is nice since it can turn a trade into a morbid Hunger of the howlpack that saves your guy and it's especially good against first strike.
Feat of Resistance on the other hand protects against removal and can be used to make something unblockable.
Not sure which one i prefer actually.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I agree about the scarcity of combat tricks in cube but i think it might work here since the tricks are really efficient and the removal is somewhat toned down compared to most cubes.
Test of faith is nice since it can turn a trade into a morbid Hunger of the howlpack that saves your guy and it's especially good against first strike.
Feat of Resistance on the other hand protects against removal and can be used to make something unblockable.
Not sure which one i prefer actually.

Test of faith is dead a lot more than you'd think. I'd go for feat
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Living death reared its ugly head last night, and I drafted this combo beauty.













This one wasn't as disruptive against aggro as the last one I drafted, but much much more explosive. Thankfully, their were no really fast aggro decks this week, or memory's journey; and yes, that is a thundermaw hellkite which can only come into play off of living death.

Insidious dreams is just insane in decks like this, and has been an infinitely better card than I ever thought it would be. I had one insane game where I EOT insidious dreamed for 5 (discarding a grip of creatures I couldn't cast--it was a terrible keep) to setup a TOL that was living death + 4 creatures. I untapped, mulched and than cast living death. My resulting board was:



Is that good? My library had 10 cards left in it at this point, and it constituted probably the most overpowered thing I've done yet in the cube. Sadly, my opponent had gotten increasing confusion into the yard earlier off of an armored skaab, and was able to flash it back for exactly 10 cards. D-:

We also had a very innovative laboratory maniac deck (the one I had that play against above). Traditionally, those types of decks are BUG, but this one was BUR, and was designed to use grim haruspex + sac. outlets to overcome the problem of instant speed removal on the maniac/act as a general value draw engine for the rest of the deck. Its really satisfying to see creative space being explored in this manner so many months after I introduced the cube.
 
Love the deck and while this may not have been super great by max power cube standards its pretty broken in an environment like this. =)
This is one of the things that drew me to build this cube, slightly lower power level but alot more room for things to actually come together. Speaking of wierd things coming together i am thinking of filling the second Ashnod's Altar slot with Door to nothingness (I am planning on turning Brion stoutarm into polis crusher). it's very much a build around wincon for control decks and i think i can be viable with all the good fixing in the cube without being a trap. Other cards i am considering are:
  • Opaline bracers to reward people who want to play four or five color but not sure of it's actual power level
  • Phyrexian splicer I love the dynamic of this one. Being able to turn small fliers and a large groundpounder into a large flier and a small ground creature is nice, Especially since the flier can belong to your opponent! =) Not sure about the activation cost though, it may bee too much for something that basically just gives evasion without increasing power or toughness.
Any thought?

I also managed to get a few nice draft decks done with your cube so if you get a moment i would love for you to try drafting mine now that they have diverged a bit from each other.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I've been going over the artifact sections, and I think there is some space there to sort of plug in what you like and experiment a bit. The sports that went to triangle of war, pithing needle, and the two ashnod's altars I feel are all very interchangable.

Door to nothingness, I think, is going to ultimately be dependent on your group: if you have a bunch of spikes, I doubt anyone will take the challenge, but if you have a lot of johnny types, it should be a fun challenge for them. Amassing 10 multi-color mana, and the door, isn't a very competitive approach (8-9 mana I think is a more attainable goal), so its real appeal i.m.o is going to be the sense of achivement in pulling it off. I do think there is some danger of it being a feel bad for more timmy players.

I like phyrexian splicer, it looks like it could really complicate combat interactions. I'm not sure that opaline bracers provides enough of a benefit to draw someone into a domain style archetype; in addition, most of our 4-5 color decks have been control decks that would have little interest in such a card. It seems a bit clunky too, for the low to the ground aggro decks that would most want voltron cards, and which generally gear towards more color symplicty.

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I've been going over the list and trying to weed out cards that seem weak, or maybe places where I can go back to singleton to increase draft diversity. Here are some of the debates i've been having.

1. triangle of war->mindless automaton: Triangle of war is too inefficent to really be a card, automatron, on the other hand, is another colorless discard outlet and a source of limited card draw. Its also a 4 drop, reasonably podable, can put itself in the yard, wins the game with lab. maniac, or triggers terminus at instant speed.

2. pithing needle->spawning pit: Pithing needle suffers from its inability to impact the board (unlike his buddy, phyrexian revoker, which has the neat interaction of shutting down mana rocks). Spawning pit is not perfect, but is another sac. outlet, and allows for large scale sacrifice.

3. grisly salvage->scab-clan giant: Not sure about scab-clan giant, but its gruul, fat, and fights things. With the generally small size of creatures in the cube, he should be able to maul something when he comes into play and bully whatever is left over, which is a bit what I want R/G to be about. Another option here is skarrg guildmage, which provides the much-in-demand trample ability.

4. shadow of doubt->Zhur-Taa Swine: SOD was originally supposed to be a replacement for the overly narrow stifle (hit fetchlands and disrupt tutors, while being able to cycle at worst), it still is too narrow. Zhur-taa is another combat trick, fatty, and buffs creature graveyard strategies.

5. birthing pod->See the unwritten: I really like the way this card allows you to use the TOL cards to do broken things. I think the main benefit of running multiple birthing pods, was it increased the chance of the card showing up in the draft, and people experimenting with the archetype. Now that its established, I think I could shift this to another interesting build-around.

6.?->thrill of the hunt?/Sylvan might?: Kind of interested in running a flashback combat trick, but no idea what to cut.

7. burning vengeance->dragon-style twins: Same rational as with birthing pod. Dragon style twins seems like a build around card, and turns all of the cube's instants into defacto combat tricks. I'm really just in the market though for red build arounds though. I like the fact that it being a creature creates more demand for the creature tutors.

8. red sun's zenith->crater's claws: Previously mentioned this: stealth buff to R/G.
reckless waif->monastery swiftspear: Swiftspear is a stealth way to inject more combat trick tension. Can cut a waif to mix it up, I suppose.

9.->reckless charge?: Another combat trick, more cheap flashback for BV, no idea what to cut. Not sure its needed.

10. carrion feeder->gnarled scarhide: stated reasons before, carrion feeder has been kind of an underperformer.

11. treacherous urge->cabal therapy: My quest for perfection is causing me to justify finally buying a therepy. We all know who the true king is.

12. deadly allure->strangling soot/consume the meek: After last weeks draft, i've finally concluded that deadly allure isn't really a card, and should go. No idea what to replace it with though. Black combat tricks suck, so I could use this as an excuse to give black based control something else sweet to play with. Both strangling soot and consume would be very strong in this environment. I normally don't like mass removal much, as people tend to use it as a reset button and extend the game, but consume has a lot of potential build-arounds options for control decks, while still hitting most of the cards they care about. I could also run Kokusho, the evening star, which would increase spirit density. I do have some concern about buffing control's removal with instant speed choices though, which is why it took strangling soot (and consume) so long to come into serious consideration.

13. banishment decree->unexpectedly absent: previously discussed
Kor skyfisher->seeker of the way: seeker is another stealth buff to combat tricks, and is a source of life gain.

14.?->feat of resistance: Thinking doomed travelerhere. Kind of want 1-2 ways to help protect creature focused combo cards like charmbreaker devils.

I've decided to hold off on duergar hedge-mage for the time being, and wait to get some feedback from you as to how your players like it. It is very tempting to cut kor sanctifiers though and run something sweet like yosei, the morning star (spirits!).

Also, we had a B/W deck come together this weekend, which was nice to see; and it came together just like how we had drawn it up: with an early angel of flight alabaster being the bait, and than causing him to grab ghost council of orzhova.

Also, darkblast has been nuts.

I'll do a few drafts tonight, and post them here. Just wanted to get some card thoughts down based on the last couple R/L drafts.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Ok, I drafted three decks, but one of them in particular I wanted to share as I think it showcases some of the higher interactions the cube is capable of, which I am usually terrible at describing.

U/B/w Control from CubeTutor.com











This was off of a first pick lim-dul's vault, with the vague intention of doing something unfair, which I think this deck does rather nicely. I also think it shows why I am of the opinion that vault is one of the most interesting cards in the cube, and why I like ghoulcaller's bell so much. Lets take a look at some of the interactions:

1. It enables a living death kill. With twin bells, increasing confusion (also a backup kill method), and a merfolk looter, vault lets you arrange whatever piece of the combo you are missing to setup a strong living death, reanimating an eldrazi (or two) and winning the game. It can also do this very quickly, depending on what your opening hand looks like. When going for a living death kill, with all of the milling potential in this deck, as a general rule, you want to get living death asap, and vault lets you do this as early as turn 2.

2. It enables instant speed terminus. Vault is obviously great at setting up miracle; and here, it does so at instant speed, with the help of looter or brainstorm.

Also, were I to have drafted delvers, I also could have ran them and gave myself a brutal early play, with their flips being powered by the twin vaults, brainstorm, and ponder. Delver can be a surprisingly effective threat in these types of decks for that reason.

3. In conjunction with ghoulcaller's bell it fixes your subsequent draws. You can take the 5 card stack, and arrange it so that you mill away the chaff and keep the 2 or so cards that you actually want to draw.

4. It serves as a general solution finder. It can get double wraths ordarkblast to shut down most creature offenses, echoing decay against tokens, memory's journey or ghoulcaller's bell to disrupt opposing tutor plans, suffer the past or memory's journey to disrupt opposing graveyard plans, and tectonic edge against townships or opposing manlands.

5. In conjunction with memory's journey it allows you to reuse your most powerful spells. With the work that the bells do on your own deck, you can always journey terminus or living death back into your deck, and either have a reasonable chance to draw them again, or simply vault for them.

There are also general shadowmage infiltrator/darkblast interactions going on that can interact with vault. There is the base value of being able to distribute up to three -1 -1 counters in a turn using darkblast (which has greater value in this cube, due to the density of low toughness creatures), but the dredge and draw trigger can also be used in conjunction with vault to setup some abusive plays dumping stuff of your choice into your graveyard, or arranging the vault stack to dredge away the chaff while allowing you to draw the card you wanted on your next turn.

A few other classic interactions going on here, is the way time ebb, memory lapse, and azorius charm work with ghoulcaller's bell to create hard removal.

Of course, like any control deck in this cube that wants to use TOL tutors to setup plays, it has to watch out for opposing dream twists or bells, the presence of which can create some extremely deep decision trees, based on when you think your opponent is going to bell, and what they think you vaulted for.
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I'm also debating now whether it might be more interesting to run a second congregation at dawn after drafting those two aggro decks. The first one has pretty questionable mana, but is capable of using congregation to setup some really powerful plays, while still staying on a general aggro gameplan.

4 Color Aggro from CubeTutor.com











You can congregation for:
1. Carrion feeder + gravecrawler
2. sharpshooter + carrion feeder + gravecrawler
3. Silverblade paladin + anything
4. Ghout council + carrion feeder+ gravecrawler
5. Champion of the parish + humans

Or just use it to get general utility creatures: fiend hunter, mesmeric fiend, or zealous conscripts.

Its a very tricky card to play, since it runs up against the usual mill or shuffle disruption, and like vault, requires you to plan your turns ahead. In addition, because the creatures are revealed, it requires your opponent to both try to deduce your hand, but try to figure out what your plays are going to be for the next three turns.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Hey Modin

Dearly departed has been settling in, and I've been fairly surprised by some of the ways that its been used. I had planned it to originally be used as a way for humans deck to gain a powerful early anthem effect when used in conjunction with cards like faithless looting, as well as a card that could be recurred with angel of flight alabaster. It can also come down as the endgame for mana flooded humans deck, or as an evasive reanimation target.

It can still do all of things, but what has really surprised me is its effectiveness as both a hate card and a removal resistant threat. Mill decks can usually go to town on a white based creature deck, but a milled dearly departed can be a disaster. Any removal or block that sends it to the yard can really come back and bite you. The humans player generally knows they can close out the game with it, and if it dies, it allows them to play out any early game threats they drew and held in hand. It does a very nice job of connecting the early and late game for those decks, and is a good example of a solid synergistic threat.

I really like harvest pyre as a "graveyard 101" card. In a gy cube, I think its a pretty mediocre thing to be doing with your yard, because its depleting your resources, and dosen't exile. However, it rewards self milling under the guise of being terminate, and for a lot of people new to the environment trying to deal with the problem of limited removal, its like a shining beacon leading to the more advanced interactions the cube is capable of.

I don't think its necessary for you to run ranger of eos, but I think you could. Its a pretty solid buff to those creature decks, and adds some spice to them which makes them more fun to play. However, if your little creature decks are already powerful, and people enjoy playing them, I don't think its really necessary to run ranger. You also aren't running pod, so there is no pressure to provide another good pod target. I don't think it would be oppressive in your format, but its hard for me to say for sure (different size cubes ect.).

Conscripts I run mostly because of its interactions with pod, and is completly unnecessary. The important thing is to have mana efficent threaten effects to generate tempo for aggro decks, to pair with fight effects, and to function as removal for sacrifice decks.

Kage breakers I think you could run. Its a card that looks really OP, but in actual play is very reasonable, even within actual triple innistrad draft. I.m.o its pretty much a model rare: powerful, synergistic, but still interactive. For KB to take over a game, not only do you need to do some work setting up your yard, but you typically need to craft a board position involving at least two attack steps to generate the advantage in wolf tokens needed to win. Generally, I find that while KB can win the game, it requires a lot of careful play.

Karmic Guide is pretty nuts and built to be abused--of all the cards you mentioned its the one I would shy away from the most. If you want white reanimation effects, their are plenty of alternatives that don't grant a pro black flying body, or create nutty endless loops.

I really like abyssal persecutor; some of our best cube stories are persecutor stories. I would be inclined to try it, but thats just me being biased.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Last night we had some really sweet decks, but this one takes the cake for me.

GrimGrin's Revenge










So versatile: it could switch roles from aggro to control to combo depending on the game state, and most of the pieces of the deck fit together synergetically to facilitate multiple role (e.g. darkblast as both a control card and enabler for living death). The absolute core of the deck were the TOL tutors, which made aggressive delver flips possible in an otherwise creature stuffed list, allowed the deck to quickly setup the living death combo, or to find key answers like darkblast or stinkweed imp to control the game.

So many cool little interactions too:
1. Stitcher's apprentice on geist angel tokens to create an overwhelming board presence.
2. Darkblast to shrink down opposing blockers so geist survives combat.
3. Casting darkblast on upkeep, dredging it, and recasting it, slowly exterminating the humans players board while creating an army of drakes with talrand. Sometimes mixed in with brainstorm.
4. Sacing homunculus or angel tokens to untap and crush in with grim-grin
5. Brainstorm fueled mass dredges
6. Using brainstorm and dredge cards (or dream twist) to get rid of unwanted cards or fill up the yard.
7. Using delver's upkeep trigger to decide whether you want to dredge or draw.

It was good the list was so versatile, as players are catching on that they can shut living death off by filling up their own yards, either through aggressive pressure forcing removal/blocks, or self-milling.
 
I have gone through a few cubetutor drafts, and have some questions:

  • How highly picked are the WWK manlands (ignoring Lavaclaw Reaches)? I tried them in an IPA-themed cube and found them to be drastically better than most cards that had the be cast.
  • How often do Burning Vengeance decks come together and go X-0 or X-1?
  • How often are aggro decks strictly two-colors?
  • Are there often control decks that don't involve white creatures?
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I have gone through a few cubetutor drafts, and have some questions:

  • How highly picked are the WWK manlands (ignoring Lavaclaw Reaches)? I tried them in an IPA-themed cube and found them to be drastically better than most cards that had the be cast.
  • How often do Burning Vengeance decks come together and go X-0 or X-1?
  • How often are aggro decks strictly two-colors?
  • Are there often control decks that don't involve white creatures?


1. I would say they are mid-tier picks, with most of their value coming from their ability to mana fix. The format is very tempo focused, so the only time they really get activated is if the game goes long and both players go into top deck mode.

2. BV dosen't come together as often as I like, so its hard for me to give you good data on that. Its sort of fallen into the same grey zone that birthing pod is currently inhabiting, in the sense that I am the only one who drafts the card, but when I do draft it, its a solid support piece in the deck it goes into. People seem to find those cards intimidating to draft around or audible into.

Its worth mentioning that we are a small group of drafters, so tech that would be discovered in a week in an established set, can take months for us to discover here. Just in the last couple weeks, my drafters have figured out that both shadow of doubt and grimgrin are very good cards in the right deck. That deck I posted above is the first time geist has really shown up, and until a month ago no one was highly picking living death. Delver has been a continuous evolution, from something that wheeled, to a narrow card that fit only into a certain type of UR deck, and now is showing up in creature packed UB decks without breaking a sweat. So, we'll see where things go.

3. I would say its very rare for any of our decks to be strickly two-colors due to the quality of the fixing: usually you will have at least some slight splash for off color flashback.

4. Our control decks are pretty much always some configuration of BUG or URx. White decks tend to be very midrangy or more aggro focused.

Also, that was a nice UR delver deck you drafted on cube tutor.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Update (finally):

Out




In




Bonesplitter I could see being a sylvok lifestaff, stangling soot may become consume the meek, bottle gnomes is basically a flex spot, and sylvan might could be vines of vastwood.

Patch Notes:

So, after spending a while playing the cube and getting an idea of possible changes, i've finally issued an update. Its built around a few observations from play:

1. Strengthen TOL interactions. This is probably the most fun part of the cube, and much of the cube's flavor and its most interesting interactions come from it. Their are some subtle buffs we've found that can be made to it, which I've put into the update. New cantrips have been added, which we've found are amazing with TOL tutors, and add a lot of interesting texture to the games. I've also broken singleton on mul-daya channelers because it adds so much to this particular mechanic (e.g. worldy tutor as a tutor + giant growth is sweet). 1 birthing pod is cut in favor of see the unwritten; this provides more of a reason to use tutors to get key build arounds, but also provides a powerful reward for TOL manipulation, and another draftable combo deck to cheat eldrazi into play. Clone shell also provides support for that strategy and works well with the sac. elements of the cube. I can see these working in a traditional BUG combo build, or ending up in a Naya build using congregation at dawn.

2. Add combat tricks. With the way the cube's removal scales, combat tricks add a lot of play to aggro decks, as they can function as an aggressive kill piece, a tool to establish board dominance, or a de facto counter. Become immense is a beating and syngerizes with the gy themes, as does sylvan might, which also provides the trample the gy beats tend to want. A few prowess creatures have been added to stick with the theme, and white losses some redundant beaters in return for some protection effects.

Some of the cards cut were too narrow (pontiff/deadly allure), too expensive (creeping renaissance/banishment decree) or redundant (flickerwisp). 1 carrion feeder was cut, because I've found that it can be something of a drafting trap for players that want to build these complex recursion decks, and than forget that its an aggro card and can't actually block. Their is still one in the cube, but now there is the less confusing gnarled scarhide.
 
I like a lot the updates- some fun cards in there! I very much like the direction I see in the cards added.

I've been trying to get my head around your cube for about a week after mulling about previous posts, and without having played with it a few times, I am unsure how much of this is relevant. Under the assumption that this is supposed to be a spiritual successor of ISD drafting, here are my concerns:

One-drop power level volume might oppress quirky decks. There are 24 one-mana creatures (appx. 1/booster) that are statted to attack. If these cards are to balance the speed of self-mill or midrange asserting control, I would look into other avenues to fight the strategies (such as reducing power levels), as so many high-powered one drops polarizes me into thinking this is a beat-versus-the-world environment where synergies often fall by the wayside. Additionally, I feel like a plethora of one drop creatures/spells is bad for the tempo game. My somewhat unsubstantiated concern stems from what I know of UR Tempo decks in Legacy or Modern: the low avg CC necessitates the meta to stock up on boring, low cmc removal and discard if the opposition is fighting on the same axis. The games between UR and a deck that is prepared for it devolve into highly efficient 1-for-1s until a deck edges ahead with threats/protecting them or resolves a back-breaking card advantage spell (if threats have been neutralized); cards like Grasp of Phantoms do not thrive (or sometimes, even compete) in such an environment.

The power level of a few non-one-cmc cards seems disproportionately high. Between Sun Titan, Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Young Pyromancer, Bloodline Keeper, Thundermaw Hellkite, Siege-Gang Commander, etc., and the one drops prior, it's hard for me to get excited about cards like Unruly Mob, Burning Vengeance, Army of the Damned, Power Matrix, stuff not included like Aerial Caravan, etc., with so many "just powerful" cards.

Mana fixing is probably too easy to come by. I found lack of great mana fixing to be one of the more interesting components of III. Players had to really work to splash third colors in Spider Spawning/Burning Vengeance (usually through picking Shimmering Grottos over real cards). Forty color-fixing lands (something like 1.6 lands/booster) seems about twice-to-three-times the amount I would expect (something like .5-.7 lands/booster, or 1.5-2 mana-fixing lands/player). Additionally, Pentad Prism, Sphere of the Suns, Vessel of Endless Rest, Yavimaya Elder, BoP, Edge of Autumn and Mul Daya Channelers give extra 5c fixing that was reserved for all-stars like Caravan Vigil and Traveler's Amulet.

The removal seems in too low of frequency in most colors. I counted about 50 "removal" spells: including bounce, burn, threaten effects and creatures that require tapping. Of these 50ish cards, 22 of them are red. While the steal-and-sac plan was enjoyable when Traitorous Bloods were abundant, I found ISD to have much more removal in white and black (but *very* situational) than red. I would cut down on burn and some threaten effects and then bolster white and black with cards like Afterlife, Ghastly Demise, Bone Splinters/Death Bomb/Flesh Allergy, Pitfall Trap or Mine Bearer (basically just shitty removal- stuff like Smite the Monstrous but not that bad ;)).

I should've asked: how many normally play your cube? I am going to assume 4-6 (if Magic players in your area are anything like those in mine- unorganized). The cubetutor sim as an 8-player draft felt out of control with all cards in play; I had no interest in things like Ghoulcaller's Bell or even Spider Spawning (although I may explore it with a black aggro component).

In short, I would take out a lot of good cards and add worse ones, while reducing mana fixing and speed. I know that I am advocating a lot of things, and that they could be at odds with your direction, so please take my feedback with a grain of salt (but feel free to directly respond so I know where to focus my musings).

Cheers!
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Thanks for the feedback Chris. A lot of the initial structure of the cube (tempo focused, limited removal, synergy, focus on board states) came from triple innistrad draft, but at this point it has morphed into its own format. I will try to provide some context:

Aggro 1 Drops

The concerns over the power level of 1 drops is a pretty normal first reaction (hence, I will write a lot here). The premier early aggro drops are the following:




I like having those three cards specifically, because the cube is operating at a higher native power level than actual triple Innistrad. III was a tempo focused format, and had a number of excellent one drops at uncommon to set that tempo (reckless waif and diregraf ghoul). These three cards are there to establish that same relationship.

But as powerful as the cards are, they are very vulnerable. Cheap bounce and removal can be tremendous setbacks for them.

And disruption is very devestating here: you also have to keep in mind not just the removal but also the available blockers. 3cc is the flashpoint in the cube (this is part of why threaten effects are so valuable in aggro shells here) where you start seeing crediable blockers coming into play (x2 armored skaab, necroskitter, grim haruspex, fettergeist, stitched drake, yavimaya elder, mul daya channelers, shadowmage infiltrator ect.). There is also a smattering of decent blockers that can come into play beforehand (tinder wall makes for the saddest of stromkirk nobles).

Once you get past 3cc, things start to get worse and worse for the aggro player as 4cc cards start to take over the board: dread slaver, dungeon geists, somnophore, sever the bloodline, silence the believers ect. The cube also has a robust set of TOL tutors to get the control pieces you need, and some of the cards can be found through self-milling (e.g. stinkweed).

Think of it as a sort of "passing of the torch" design for the slower decks, where they draft this sort of layered defense: 1cc disruptive spells->3cc blockers->4cc powerful removal. The aggro decks job is to be as resilient as possible to this.

I tend to be very careful with removal, because I know for a fact that it is very oppressive on those wacky decks, where as i've not found the aggro decks to be the problem. I've been slowly upgrading the removal, but its tricky buisness as I don't want to disrupt complex board states too much. You can see that with this most recent update, where I am adding strangling soot in preference to consume the meek. I understand your concern, but its basically just a slow balancing act.

We do have a player here that religiously drafts humans if he sees the chance to force it; as a result, the cube's "human control defenses" get tested pretty regularly. However, we still have a lot of wacky brews. Still, I can assure that if I start to think that the deck is becoming oppressive, I am ready to make the necessay cuts.

Removal Density

I counted about 60ish removal spells (give or take a few depending on if we are counting combat tricks).

As for the specific dispersal of removal, the cube has taken on a life of its own here, with red able to take on a very controlling role, white representing graveyard hate/removal, and black having the most powerful pieces. Green has fight effects (which combo very well with red's threaten effects or blacks deathtouch). Blue has tap effects, TOL bounce + mill, and normal bounce. Its not just about limited removal to emphasis threats and tempo though, I also want to challenge my players during draft and deck construction to come up with creative ways to solve these problems. For example, one of the major themes of the cube (unlike innistrad) is TOL manipulation, so I often times don't want a raw density of effects.

Fixing

Again: Innistrad theme cube, we've moved away a bit here. We are both operating at a higher power level and one of our major themes is TOL manipulation: fetchlands are here to stay and add so much to the format. Great mana fixing feeds into the cube's key interactions, and just makes better games. Usually we get 2-3 color decks, perhaps with a light splash for a 4th color.

Power Level Discrepency

Siege-gang commander, bloodline keeper, and young pyromancer really arn't pushing the power line here at all. Siege-gang is the only one of those three I would consider even being capable of doing so, but its mana cost can be a huge issue. Reveillark and karmic guide I would say are pretty much on spot in terms of the cube's power level. Sun titan is maybe a bit more of an out right bomb, but you would be surprised how often its just not that impressive. Its a great card but you really need to build around it, you need the time to cast it, and you need to not be disrupted.

Thundermaw is kind of surprising to me to see on your list. I run it mostly for its ability to kill spirit tokens, but honestly its just ok. There is some vampire that I could run thats 2/2 with haste and gets tokens, but I would rather provide anti-lingering souls tech to prevent board stalls.

All games must end. Most of the cards you listed I would quantify as high CC finishers, and i'm ok with that as long as the path to the ending of the game is interesting.

Hope that helps
 
Greets Grillo!

I happened upon these recently during Gatherer searches (and thought you might find them interesting):



Been quiet lately, as I don't feel very qualified to offer too much advice on such a long-standing (and well-invested) project without actually playing it a lot. Hell, even my own projects don't play out as I envision them initially! I appreciate your context and, from it, think I can be most useful offering up cards that I happen upon (or brainstorming in response to specific questions).
 
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