Inscho's Graveyard Combo Cube

[sigh]

My first thought is

At this:

Considering cutting Murmuring Mystic, Young Pyromancer, and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

Since this was one of the first things I did when developing my new UR archetypes. Even though I do keep the Mystic around for how well the body helps slow decks.

I think seize the storm is an excellent anchor for this archetype concept. Been scouting out if I have room in my format.

There is also the RTL oft-discussed card magmatic channeler as a "gy counter" component. This is my direct replacement for Pyromancer. Then there's the admittedly mana-intensive crackling drake, which counts cards in exile and the grave... that sweet, sweet flashback/delve/jump-start synergy

Excited to see how this develops!

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Seize the storm is a bit of a non-bo with the wheels that shuffle your graveyard in. What about leaning into card drawing triggers:



And if you're not wheeling with shuffle effects

 

[inscho]

I really wish either Tutelage was target player rather than opponent. The trouble I have with most of the draw trigger stuff is how slow/clunky the payoffs are.

Here's one draft I came up with:



I think the move for this deck is to shift away from the shuffling blue draw spells. I only run one at this point. Rather leaning on blue for general looting, spell recursion, and payoffs


It's pretty intuitive, because I already support an aggressive looting tempo deck which uses most of the same pieces:




The control version would just be less wheel-centric....running more looting, counterspells, and removal. Drake Haven is good here, and Improbable Alliance could be worth including.

 

[sigh]

That is a spicy looking deck, and like you mention, it seems to slot right into the format as a tempo shift on your existing deck.

Considering the very high discard density, including the mass-discard from wheels, surly badgersaur seems like a good consideration in the 4 slot. Wheeling away a creature, a couple lands, and a spell or two is a nice bomb of value.

improbable alliance seems alright, but it's a bit of a bummer that it's a gold slot, and you can't get more than one faerie at a time, so big draws from wheels don't do more than a Conspiracy Theorist trigger can do, for instance. Not that that's a bad thing, just a bit of a bummer for a consideration on your precious few Izzet slots.

Since you are toning back the shuffle-wheels, Seize the storm is gaining ground! Seems like a game-winning flashback to line up to the "ult" of the Mirari Conjecture, and of course can be huge on it's own too. Man, I really want to find a slot for Conjecture now....

 

[Nanonox]

Out of your list, I think Dream Halls has a high upside. It really rewards you for chaining wheels and pairs well with Sneak Attack and Feldon of the Third Path for a different type of cheaty deck.

I am also drawn to Mizzix's Mastery as a spells/self-mill payoff. It is totally serviceable at 4 mana, but also allows you to dream big.

Since this is a combo cube, these seem like the most explosive options and also ones that open doors to more strategies.

Also Nexus of Fate wasn't in the list of cards for the wheels deck, but can definitely play well with them too (you have it in your list so I am sure you are well aware of this!).

Edit:



is also a serious payoff for these types of decks. With the amount of cards you are dumping in the GY, it is possible to gain value from recurring some cheap cards.

 

[Erik Twice]

I cut Saheeli and never missed her. At the end of the day, UR Spells is versatile and interesting enough that it doesn't have to be a variant of tokens as well. I still keep Young Pyromancer and Monastery Mentory and I do still get the ocassional Spells-Token deck, but it's not necessary to force the archetype into it.

 

[sigh]

Underworld Breach is gas. By far my favorite Yawgmoth's Will style card, and a very unique effect for red. Also second Mizzix's Mastery. Usually a red mission briefing effect, but sometimes you reach late game and it becomes a game-win.

Mission briefing also a very fun spell for this deck, now that I mention it.

 

[inscho]

Considering the very high discard density, including the mass-discard from wheels, surly badgersaur seems like a good consideration in the 4 slot. Wheeling away a creature, a couple lands, and a spell or two is a nice bomb of value.

I found both Badgersaur and Bone Miser to be pretty awkward in the cube's curve. Curator of Mysteries and Archfiend of Ifnir kind of avoid that issue by self-cycling. I have them on standby in the event that I drop the speed/power of the cube down a notch.

improbable alliance seems alright, but it's a bit of a bummer that it's a gold slot, and you can't get more than one faerie at a time, so big draws from wheels don't do more than a Conspiracy Theorist trigger can do, for instance. Not that that's a bad thing, just a bit of a bummer for a consideration on your precious few Izzet slots.

Yeah, Alliance wouldn't be optimal in the combo version of the deck...more likely a control win-con. I agree that the one-dimensionality is tough for a gold slot.

Since you are toning back the shuffle-wheels, Seize the storm is gaining ground! Seems like a game-winning flashback to line up to the "ult" of the Mirari Conjecture, and of course can be huge on it's own too. Man, I really want to find a slot for Conjecture now....

The flashback cost is a bit rough on Seize. I'm still eyeing it, but I'm not sure it's strong enough tbh

Out of your list, I think Dream Halls has a high upside. It really rewards you for chaining wheels and pairs well with Sneak Attack and Feldon of the Third Path for a different type of cheaty deck.

Yeah, Dream Halls would like throwing gas on the fire in this cube given discard themes are prevalent in every color except white. I tend to disregard it as just a card for a storm package, but you make a good point that it has a lot of value outside of that one use.

I am also drawn to Mizzix's Mastery as a spells/self-mill payoff. It is totally serviceable at 4 mana, but also allows you to dream big.

Agreed. I just lack some top end spell options to make this really fun. But if Dream Halls comes back, then Cruel Ultimatum can too

Also Nexus of Fate wasn't in the list of cards for the wheels deck, but can definitely play well with them too (you have it in your list so I am sure you are well aware of this!).

I spend my free time daydreaming about all of the many ways to abuse Nexus

I cut Saheeli and never missed her. At the end of the day, UR Spells is versatile and interesting enough that it doesn't have to be a variant of tokens as well. I still keep Young Pyromancer and Monastery Mentory and I do still get the ocassional Spells-Token deck, but it's not necessary to force the archetype into it.

I think I've come to this conclusion as well

Underworld Breach is gas. By far my favorite Yawgmoth's Will style card, and a very unique effect for red. Also second Mizzix's Mastery. Usually a red mission briefing effect, but sometimes you reach late game and it becomes a game-win.

Mission briefing also a very fun spell for this deck, now that I mention it.

I've never played with Underworld Breach or Mission Briefing...Need to think of them some more. So many cards, so little space

 

[blacksmithy]

breach is cool but can be underwhelming if you’re not able to get at least 2 cards off it. otherwise it runs the risk of being “worse regrowth.” that said i run it in my upsize pack

 

[sigh]

breach is cool but can be underwhelming if you’re not able to get at least 2 cards off it.

That is certainly a consideration, but especially in this environment there are plenty of ways for decks to prep it and to utilize it beyond just one card. And even a worse regrowth is pretty strong. Regrowth is a high bar to be weighed against.

 

[blacksmithy]

yeah, just something to keep in mind when you test - see how many cards people tend to cast off it and that can be a good way to evaluate how it’s performing

 

[inscho]

One benefit of Underworld Breach is that it can bring back card types that are otherwise difficult to recur....in this Izzet archetype it could be really useful to recur Thassa's Oracle or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

 

[LadyMapi]

My friend.



No, seriously, Runeflare Trap is hilarious with wheels, especially wheels up to 7. There's also Molten Psyche, which is a wheel + payoff.

 

[inscho]

Update to the main list:

Spoiler: Out

Spoiler: In

MID additions. I removed the spell based token suite, and shifted the spell volume archetype in Izzet more towards control. Brought back some more discard-oriented cards to red. Added a lot of artifacts. Cut a suite of lands and added some 5 color options. There's such a high volume of artifacts in the cube now that I think the mana base burden is reduced enough to not miss those few extra lands. I cut down on some cute stuff/pet cards, and I'm trying to hone in on what each color is trying to do. It felt like some colors were trying to do too much.

Some initial thoughts:
- White's aggro presence is much more noticeable and welcomed. It felt like aggro had been taking a back seat to token and blink strategies
- I don't really miss the spells matters token deck
- The extra artifacts were sorely needed

I going to try to update the main post archetype breakdown this week to account for the changes.

Appreciate any thoughts and drafts!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Appreciate any thoughts and drafts!

I really like a lot of these changes, I think you generally cut a bunch of clunky cards and added things with broader flexibility and utility.

I'm not a big fan of losing Boon of the Wish-Giver in a Cube with a heavy cycling/discard theme. It has one of the most flexible cycling costs around and a decent spell side to boot. I could see cutting it if it were too good in comparison to the rest of the format, but it has too many interesting decision points to be a card worth cutting otherwise.

I'm hoping Memory Deluge is good. It's the first Fact or Fiction variant I've seen in a long time that looks like it is both non-punishing, efficient, and flexible enough to see play in a wide variety of decks. It might be a little slow for my environment, but it looks like a perfect inclusion for this Cube.

I tested this card when it came out and it felt super weak. I was also pretty heavy on spells/discard at the time, so I thought it would be really sweet, but it turned out to be a little hard to enable and super swingy in practice. Sometimes it would kill everything on the opponent's board and they would just insta-lose, and sometimes it would leave a random Honored Hydra or something behind and make the caster sad. There were also the situations where an aggro player would rush down the spells/discard deck before they had a chance to cast their 6-mana sorcery, which always felt bad. I don't think this card is more fun or more interesting than the red cards you had to cut to make room for it, which is a shame because the design is cool in theory .

White's aggro presence is much more noticeable and welcomed.

I really like the way your White section is shaping up, aggro definitely looks better in this update. If you're still seeing aggro needs an extra buff, I would suggest adding a couple of extra 1-drops to White. I went from 6 to 9 one-drops about a year ago, and that helped to increase the efficiency of White decks. It let them start their curves a little earlier on average and helped to enable cards that reward spell volocity like Clarion Spirit in the aggro lists. They don't need to be generic Savannah Lions variants, any warm body can do as long as they provide some extra value. Herald of Anafenza and Usher of the Fallen are both super fun cards that can help provide a little bit of board presence without needing to spend valuable cards. You probably don't need 9 ones in order to make White aggro fun or powerful here since your Cube is a little bit slower than lists where that number is optimal, but bumping up the 1 MV density is a good way to push the deck a little further.

There's also a unique little "small thing tribal" deck forming in White recently thanks to cool newer cards like Abiding Grace. In conjunction with cards you're already running like Vesperlark and Bygone Bishop. White weenie strategies can build some really cool grind engines that can "fix" the card economy problems these strategies tend to face. I'd be really interested to see how this archetype plays in a Cube with this theme.


Have you considered expanding your Cube to 384 cards and drafting 3 packs of 16 cards? This change makes it so each pack wheels twice without fundamentally changing the DNA of the draft.

 

[inscho]

I'm not a big fan of losing Boon of the Wish-Giver in a Cube with a heavy cycling/discard theme. It has one of the most flexible cycling costs around and a decent spell side to boot. I could see cutting it if it were too good in comparison to the rest of the format, but it has too many interesting decision points to be a card worth cutting otherwise.

I'm hoping Memory Deluge is good. It's the first Fact or Fiction variant I've seen in a long time that looks like it is both non-punishing, efficient, and flexible enough to see play in a wide variety of decks. It might be a little slow for my environment, but it looks like a perfect inclusion for this Cube.

I had Memory Deluge slotting in for Boon in this update. I definitely like Boon and could see it coming back or possibly taking Mental Note's slot. I like Deluge as a draw spell for slower/control decks. Some of this latest update was trying to carve out some design space for Blue and Red-based control archetypes.

I'm going to get a cube night in soon, and will test these updates.

Mental Note vs Boon of the Wish-Giver is a fun fight club debate. The value of 3 cards in the graveyard vs the flexibility and discard trigger.

I tested this card when it came out and it felt super weak. I was also pretty heavy on spells/discard at the time, so I thought it would be really sweet, but it turned out to be a little hard to enable and super swingy in practice. Sometimes it would kill everything on the opponent's board and they would just insta-lose, and sometimes it would leave a random Honored Hydra or something behind and make the caster sad. There were also the situations where an aggro player would rush down the spells/discard deck before they had a chance to cast their 6-mana sorcery, which always felt bad. I don't think this card is more fun or more interesting than the red cards you had to cut to make room for it, which is a shame because the design is cool in theory .

That's a bummer. I'm still optimistic. There's enough differences between our formats to end up with different results. Fwiw, I don't want this to be a reliable 6 mana Plague Wind. It took Sweltering Suns place which is a solid card. I'll report back with my experiences with it.

I really like the way your White section is shaping up, aggro definitely looks better in this update. If you're still seeing aggro needs an extra buff, I would suggest adding a couple of extra 1-drops to White. I went from 6 to 9 one-drops about a year ago, and that helped to increase the efficiency of White decks. It let them start their curves a little earlier on average and helped to enable cards that reward spell volocity like Clarion Spirit in the aggro lists. They don't need to be generic Savannah Lions variants, any warm body can do as long as they provide some extra value. Herald of Anafenza and Usher of the Fallen are both super fun cards that can help provide a little bit of board presence without needing to spend valuable cards. You probably don't need 9 ones in order to make White aggro fun or powerful here since your Cube is a little bit slower than lists where that number is optimal, but bumping up the 1 MV density is a good way to push the deck a little further.

I definitely agree with that principle. I approach one drops with a little bit of caution as increasing the density of one drops will have a ripple effect in my removal, ramp, and mana suites. My environment is currently designed around turn two aggro decks. Fwiw, Aggro decks have always been pretty successful in my format. I have no turn 1 ramp, minimal turn 2 ramp, and a slightly toned down removal suite. Aggro decks stay relevant with their fair share of flashy sequences/combos as well as recursive components and hand/mana disruption.

There's also a unique little "small thing tribal" deck forming in White recently thanks to cool newer cards like Abiding Grace. In conjunction with cards you're already running like Vesperlark and Bygone Bishop. White weenie strategies can build some really cool grind engines that can "fix" the card economy problems these strategies tend to face. I'd be really interested to see how this archetype plays in a Cube with this theme.

Agreed. I've supported it as a minor subtheme for some time now, but I've never gone so far as to make it a proper archetype. I honestly don't consider card value as being much of an issue for white these days.

Right now, I have micro-reanimator:


The recruiters:


Which are great for blinking:


Along with things that capitalize on multiple castings:



Not to mention things like can come back from the grave:



White has become really interesting in the last few years. It has mostly just been a struggle to balance it's role in a graveyard cube. Outside of the small creature recursion, a lot of what white does best doesn't clearly overlap with much of what a graveyard cube wants to be doing. Investing more heavily in artifacts has been pretty important to weaving white more thoroughly into the cube architecture

Have you considered expanding your Cube to 384 cards and drafting 3 packs of 16 cards? This change makes it so each pack wheels twice without fundamentally changing the DNA of the draft.

The 20 extra cards is more about introducing a tiny bit of variance. I think about a card like Death Cloud, which is a very strong card when properly built around, but also very narrow. It's so narrow that it will almost always wheel to the person that wants it. I don't love the idea that you could rely on a card wheeling with almost complete certainty. There are other cards that I think of the same way. I realize that 20 extra cards doesn't change those odds by much, but it's enough to introduce a sliver of uncertainty and minor variance without being so many extra cards that you could end up drafting without a dozen important intersection cards or build-arounds

I often debate between running at 375 and 390 mostly so that all of the cube can fit neatly into my cubeamajigs. I think I'm closer to bumping up to 390 at the moment.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[inscho]

Taking a hard look at:



Nanonox planted the seed in my mind by mentioning it on my cube cobra list. I've mainly avoided it as it would be the only instance of the historic keyword, but it's spelled out on the card at least. With newly expanded artifact section it seems like I should revisit it. It also plays nice with the hand blink cards and all of the self-mill and sacrifice subthemes. It definitely opens up a different angle to exploit in white-based combo decks.

I need to snoop @dbs cube for inspiration. Anyone else with some experience to share with Teshar in cube?

 

[sigh]

Anyone else with some experience to share with Teshar

in cube

 

[Nanonox]

Anyone else with some experience to share with Teshar in cube?

Only that it failed when my power level was all over the place a few years back. It was too slow and fragile at the mana cost compared to what else the cube was doing. My removal was too strong and had too many GRBS cards. It was also not supported enough.

However, allow me to quote

My environment is currently designed around turn two aggro decks

I have no turn 1 ramp, minimal turn 2 ramp, and a slightly toned down removal suite.

I think these are a recipe for success with Teshar (in addition to the historic support needed obviously).

You have a few combos, but they are pretty tough to put together



Blasting Stationworks here instead of the Altar, Scrap Trawler can replace the Myr and Urza's Bauble can be used as a replacement to the other bauble.

It is a unique build around that really gives you an incentive to go into White, which is rare in a GY cube!

 

[sigh]

My typical combo kill in EDH is


But there's really a lot of directions to go with it, and even without comboing off you can get a ton of value off of Teshar. Heck, even in an aggressive deck with equipments, recurring a up-to-3 drop on every equipment cast is pretty great. and it holds equipment well considering flying.

My favorite part about combos with teshar is that basically every component can be in some combination of your graveyard, hand, and/or battlefield, and you can still pull it off. This means that cards like Goblin Engineer can still play a key role as tutoring to the GY is just as valuable as tutoring to hand. Pretty much your entire UR draw-discard suite can come to bear since, again, almost the entire combo can be in the GY and you can suddenly whip it out of the grave off a good draw. Gamble: great.

You might want to consider something like ingenious smith as another outlet for frequent artifact ETBs, and also as a way to dig for them.

One potential stumbling block is your Legend count is pretty low. Only 6.5% of your cube is legendary (mine is 10% for reference). The Legend trigger on historic comes up pretty often, especially if you are trying to go a more aggressive route.

 

[inscho]

Made a few pre-draft changes:

Spoiler: Out

Spoiler: In:

We got a 8-person cube night in on Monday. I followed @TrainmasterGT 's suggestion of running 384 cards and 3x16 packs. I realize that I'm not cubing often enough to be worried about variance, and wanted every card to have a chance to make an appearance. This was my first post-pandemic draft. My playgroup has been drafting retail for several months now, but it has been a bit difficult to drum up enthusiasm to cube. So when I got enough interest to break it out, I had to upgrade my cardboard cube box with loose cards:

https://imgur.com/a/jzbtaYx

I found a Dragon Shield Magic Carpet XL box at Redcap's Corner here in Philly that ended up being the perfect size. I'd ordered the Cubeamajig Packs weeks ago. The nice thing about the Magic Carpet is that the outer shell is also a playmat. Winner of the night got to sign their name in silver paint pen on the outside while I recorded their printed name and date on the inside. I hope to have the case look like one of the team-autographed baseballs I used to collect as a kid. The winner will get a chance to use the playmat at the next cube outing....the Playmat of Champions if you will. I feel like these little extra touches made the draft feel a little more special and memorable, and hopefully people will be more excited to cube in the future. I highly recommend Cubeamajig's to anyone that hasn't tried them. Players can pick their own packs more easily, trade with other people before draft, packs don't accidentally get mixed together, and it's fun to actually open a pack.

I did not take notes so I'll only offer up some brief comments on each deck:

Spoiler: 3-0

Mike W: Delve Control

Mike drafted a pretty textbook Delve Control deck. I typically envision this archetype being more spell-centric than this build, but the multiple creatures with Deathtouch operating as functional removal allowed him to run Skaab Ruinator which I thought was a very clever decision. I lost to this deck in the first round. I'd almost cut the mill package of Ashiok, Dream Render, Wall of Lost Thoughts and Stream of Thought before the draft, but I’m glad that I got to see the deck in action. I wanted to specifically get more play info on Ashiok, but it only hit play once all night and when it did it won the game for him (against me). The target player mill package remains on the watchlist.

Spoiler: 2-1

James S: Selesnya Land Knight

I did not get to see this deck is action very much, but I did see it go up against Delve Control briefly in the final match. Cataclysm was cast in two different games for which the Delve Control had a Murderous Cut as an answer each time. It sounds like Cataclysm was huge for him in his other matches...leaving behind a Tarmogoyf or Knight of the Reliquary or binning Hallowed Spiritkeeper to spam the board. I was pretty excited to see this deck surface. It's one of my favorite archetypes in the cube.

Mike H: Rakdos Artifact Aggro

I don't run a lot of one drops, but Mike drafted almost all of them. The deck was blisteringly fast and had a lot of alternative plans of attack for an aggro deck. I was hoping to see a Welder used in an aggro context, and this was the perfect use....binning a Scrapheap Scrounger and recurring Tangle Wire *chef's kiss*

Evan: Grixis Madness

I faced Evan in the third round, and really enjoyed his deck. The games were tight and two came down to a single turn....that was the theme of the night for me. I went 1-2, but my losses were tight games. I love the double-Squee action with Master of Death....just tons of card advantage....Zombie Infestation would've been killer here.

Spoiler: 1-2

James I: 4c Oath

This was my deck. I wanted to force a fringe archetype. When I think of Oath decks I tend to think of them as predominately Selesnya or Simic, but this one ended up with a Gruul base. It was far from an optimal build in my mind. Ayula's Influence was probably my mvp of the night with Wrenn and Six and Life from the Loam fueling it. Immolating Gyre won me one game that Sweltering Suns would not have, but was too slow the other game I saw it.

Corey: Rakdos Sneaky Welder

Corey had the guts of a great Sneaky Welder build, but lacked some of the glue cards (low cmc artifacts) and removal to bring the strategy home. I think he originally planned to draft a Golgari Stax deck, but had to switch gears when that dried up. As a result his pool was a little thin when it came time to construct his deck.

Nick: Selesnya Midrange

Artifact synergy in green is fairly weak in my cube, so I feel like there was a bit of trap here. I've toyed with the idea of including Ranger of Eos and Mikaeus, the Lunarch again, and this would've been a great deck for them to make an appearance. It didn't help Nick's case that there was another Selesnya drafter at the table. I've put a lot of work into Selesnya so seeing two people drawn into the guild is exciting.

Spoiler: 0-3

Aaron: Azorius Tempo

I really want an Azorius tempo deck to be a thing (preferably with more Flash), but it is not really supported in the cube right now. I think that is slightly evident here, and is something I want to devote some cube real estate to remedying. I also think Aaron had to pivot mid-draft and was getting cut out of his colors by his neighbors so he was left with a slightly less than focused build. That said, there's a lot I like about this list.

Overall a good spread of decks, but a tough night for the cheat strategies.

 

[inscho]

Sorry for the double-post, but I wanted to add my Crimson Vow updates:

Out:


In:



Welcoming Vampire: I was debating whether I wanted to run both this and Bygone Bishop, but I think I like both and will cut Bugler instead. The bishop plays a strong role in artifact-based strategies which I find very valuable. I do like how the Vampire bridges creature-fall and token strategies....It's really nice with recursive creatures and sacrifice, and combos with Zombie Infestation and Ayula's Influence (two cards I'm always looking for reasons to keep around).

Cemetery Protector: Home-run. Exactly the type of card I've wanted in white. This easily replaces Emeria Angel, and even offers a thematic alternative to Monastery Mentor which I cut months ago. I have a land theme as well as a creature-fall theme in white with the recruiters and hand-flicker effects. This ties multiple archetypes together and has great base stats.

By Invitation Only: Replaces Cleansing Nova. I'm a big fan of sweepers that provide some build-around component. Aside from being an unconditional sweeper for control decks, I see this is having value in Stax decks that spam the board with tokens and recursive creatures. Sacrifice all your creatures but your Marionette Master or Midnight Reaper? Sacrifice World Shaper and leave behind your Tireless Tracker? I think there are a lot of fun outcomes in my environment. I loved Barter in Blood back in the day, and this is so much better!

 

[sigh]

I don't think you can "double post" your own blog

 

[inscho]

I've been thinking some more about Azorius Tempo. I definitely have most of the basic components to support a functional tempo deck, but I think it could use some small tweaks to really bring it together. I'm trying to think of how to clarify the archetype so this will be a bit of a ramble.

Hours after making my post yesterday about not supporting Azorius Tempo, Zubat drafted an Azorius Tempo deck on CC as a sort of "see? it's right here" lol. Here's their deck:



This looks great, and highlights what version of Azorius Tempo is working right now.

In general, white is pretty self-contained in my cube at this point. The combination of blink, creaturefall, and recrusion is such a tidy synergystic package, that it is difficult for other colors to establish dominance in an aggressive context. While Zubat's deck is predominately White, this intersection of Trinkets, Evasion, Blink is where Blue can be the most successful and dominant in Azorius Tempo:



So maybe it is more about pushing that a little further? Some cards that come to mind:



Signal Pest seems like an easy include. Smuggler's Copter and SFM might be a bit much. Thought Monitor is narrow. I might be better off with Ojuati's Command than Dance in a tempo deck...although I do like it as a signal.

A small incompatibility I run into is that White aggro likes to use all of its mana on its turn which isn't copacetic with leaving mana open for counterspells (a large part of blue's identity). An increase of flash is one way to give blue some breathing room to work, and one of the reasons why I was so excited by the printing of Cemetery Protector. Other cards I've considered:



I particularly like Borrower and Venser of these. They'd make the archetype more disruptive and reactive, but they are a bit goodstuffy.

With disruption in mind, a card I've been eyeing lately:



Would be great alongside artifacts, flash, bounce, and counterspells. I also find myself missing:



Blue doesn't offer much in the way of aggressive two drops right now, and I like the mix of hatebear, evasion, and discard outlet. I really like the Hatebear archetype, and there is a promising one in Azorius:

Random Hatebear Sketch

Which looks deliciously obnoxious.

An aside, I wish that White Aggro could get more mileage out of Blue cards like:



I include these:



Which helps some, but most of these are pretty mana intensive. There's also the new Fleeting Spirit, but white twos are pretty stacked.

This train of thought is running out of steam, but this is what I've been mulling over the last couple of days.

 

[sigh]

[looks up "copacetic"]

Huh

That's quite a... copacetic word

I don't think SFM is overbearing. It can singlehandedly tie an equipment package together (a good thing), works with stuff like blink, and is only as powerful as the equipment it can find. As long as you don't include Batterskull you should be fine.

Protection definitely has it's downsides, but if you want a unique option for white GY synergy.... glory maybe?