Inscho's Graveyard Combo Cube

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
EDIT: What's up with all the broken images?

I actually figured it out! It looks like your apostrophe character is not the right one:
' - the normal one I guess?
’ - the curly one, which is in your decklists.
I have no idea why this is, because you're using the normal one in the text of your post. Are these decklists exported from something?
 
Out:




In:



Reluctantly brought the cube up to 380. Bringing in some Dominaria, and addressing some gaps in archetype support. Incentivizing control (Linvala, the Preserver, Sphinx's Revelation, Alhammarret's Archive), Support for blue-based artifact decks (Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Grand Architect). More free spells in blue to give storm and storm tempo more umph to compete against resource denial and aggro archetypes. Rector Show and Oath support (Replenish). Cut a few mindless auto-includes.

Starting to feel like I have some clear goals and as a result decision making is getting much easier.
 
Oh, hey there....I've made too many adjustments since my last post to rehash, but here's some highlights:

Really focusing on creating more of a variety of synergies within deck archetypes. I'd previously become obsessed with streamlining and optimizing strategies....I came to realize that this really oversimplifies the environment, and often leads to there being one "right" way to draft each archetype. Trying to shift to more of an exploratory drafting experience.

Call me tomorrow, but I think I'm fine with the increasingly esoteric nature of my cube. I want to design another cube at some point that has an easier point of entry, but this one is indulging my deepest joys when playing magic...when everything is an endless puzzle....and if you get it right, you unlock some wild stuff.

I've fallen down the rabbit hole a bit with fringe combos and weird interactions...things are drawing closer to degeneracy. I like existing right at the cusp where wild plays are possible, but where combo isn't so oppressive that all "fair" strategies are rendered obsolete.

in for

I'm going to give fastbond a spin. It has the potential to really unlock some hidden potential in a few decks that need a little umph. Any crazy combos with it require 3 cards, and I'm usually fine with 3 piece combos with a limited tutor suite.



(This version of Blessing: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Unstable/Ineffable Blessing-A#paper)

Gleaned from Dom...I'm interested in a creature chaining combo deck for green. I also want people to die via Fireball more frequently :mad: I think I need to slightly adjust my curve toppers to capitalize on this new trio

Right now I think I've maybe committed one too many resources in green land-based interactions:


I'm not sure if Multani is good enough for my cube, but I really love the flavor....Titania, Protector of Argoth is far too good.

That's what I got for now. Interested to hear anyone's thoughts.
 
I like existing right at the cusp where wild plays are possible, but where combo isn't so oppressive that all "fair" strategies are rendered obsolete.

This is the ideal, right? And I think if you walk this line you can have your cake and eat it too when it comes to esoteric vs. easy point of entry. With my cube I've really been trying to open up space for more off-the-wall exploratory stuff that each archetype can dabble in but while also maintaining a more traditional and recognizable archetypal architecture for each color pair.
 
This is the ideal, right? And I think if you walk this line you can have your cake and eat it too when it comes to esoteric vs. easy point of entry. With my cube I've really been trying to open up space for more off-the-wall exploratory stuff that each archetype can dabble in but while also maintaining a more traditional and recognizable archetypal architecture for each color pair.


In some sense, yeah. Right now, I think my cube is overwhelming to people with less experience. Whether fair strategies are successful or not doesn't really alleviate people from the walls of text, keyword variety, and complexity in zone interactions. I remember hearing that Time Spiral block draft had a similar issue (I was out of the game at that point)...high point of entry, lots of complexity and nuance, not palatable to the average player, but nerds loved it. On the spectrum, your cube is far more successful in terms of multiple entry points based on experience than mine is.
 
Nice post. I like your cube a lot, but I do worry about the potential for degeneracy (but maybe that's a personal preference sort of thing). Guess you'd have to see how your players feel about it.

Thanks, dude! Your cube designs have provided a lot of inspiration over the last couple years so it's nice to hear.

I have two main groups I play with these days....Group A is comprised of once-competitive players with a very high aptitude, enjoy skill testing mental games, and don't get bent out of shape when all the cogs fall into place across the table and whoops they're dead (I occupy this camp)...this group drafts limited, two-headed giant, team drafts, cube drafts (all draft formats are game essentially). Group B is mostly newcomers that are closer to casual on the "casual<>competitive" spectrum...this group almost exclusively drafts standard retail limited, and has exhibited no interest in cube whatsoever, they're all fairly average in skill level...not bad, not great.

Group A's longest tenured cube is a fully foiled out powered cube....which is an impressive thing to behold, but some of us have grown a little tired of. I broke into the group with a peasant cube, which has slowly morphed into this cube over the last few years. A lot of my cube's evolution has been me honing what level of disruption, combo and complexity I really want in a cube experience.

Feedback has been almost unanimously positive, and people have been really great at articulating their experiences to me....but I also only bring it out when it's sympathetic to the vibe of the playgroup these days.
 
Maybe you want a different cube for group b. Maybe a retail redesigned vibe, or something like innistrad combined?

Group a sounds fun. You just need to watch that your format doesn't become 'solved' by just drafting the most degenerate cards available. See how you get on. You're definitely on the right lines to find something that allows for different fun decks. My preference would be play up this rather than the power cards, but if you can walk that fine line without people getting bummed out then great. Just keep an eye on it and maybe be more proactive about getting feedback afterwards.
 
Maybe you want a different cube for group b. Maybe a retail redesigned vibe, or something like innistrad combined?

This is essentially the solution I've arrived at, and it's what I meant by...

I want to design another cube at some point that has an easier point of entry, but this one is...


It also gives me another cube to endlessly noodle on o_O

Group a sounds fun. You just need to watch that your format doesn't become 'solved' by just drafting the most degenerate cards available. See how you get on. You're definitely on the right lines to find something that allows for different fun decks. My preference would be play up this rather than the power cards, but if you can walk that fine line without people getting bummed out then great. Just keep an eye on it and maybe be more proactive about getting feedback afterwards.

It's definitely a tightrope walk. Right now, I'm enjoying exploring just how close I can get to that line while avoiding the draft all things powerful and smash scenario. I think the power of the "problematic cards" I've chosen to include are largely contingent upon having the right support cards. There are exceptions to that like Meloku, the Clouded Mirror and Myr Battlesphere that I'm keeping an eye on.
 
Got a 5 man draft in last night and bridged the two play groups: 2 of the more competitive players from the casual group came out...both having never cubed before. Will post decklists and game details later, but I got several comments on the experience:

Conversation with 2 friends that are regulars in Group A (mentioned here):

M: Cube was a lot of fun. Were 4/5 people playing green?
C: Yeah, I think so. I had a lot of fun too. Definitely one of the most mentally stimulating and satisfying Magic experiences I've ever had.
M: For sure. Very intense. I have a lot of room for growth with this style of play. Plenty of mistakes.
M: Drawing 15 cards and winning with lab maniac was one of my most memorable magic moments.
C: Yeah. My deck was pretty straightforward, but it was still really interesting to navigate around other people's more creative decks/strategies. Went from playing against spells matter token control, to whatever you want to call both of the your decks (self-mill combo control for M, and aristocrats living death combo for J?)
C: When you pulled that off it instantly felt like witnessing a moment that will be talked about for a long time
C: I was selfishly really happy to be there to see it with my own eyes haha
J (me): I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. I was worried that the format might be a little too complicated...but I just decided to embrace my favorite parts of the game, and see how people respond to it.
J: On the topic of green. I think there are too many bomby anchor cards in green compared to other colors. I need to do some counts....I'm not going to get hasty with changes over one draft, but I was suspicious going into the draft that it might be a problem.
M: Yeah, I was going to suggest that. I think you also tell people there are lots of graveyard synergies and people are inclined to take some green or black cards when they see it.
J: Yeah, you're right. I should be a little more thorough explaining various archetypes.

Separate conversation with first time cuber from Group B, likely the most talented player of that crew:

J: Thanks again for coming out! If you have any thoughts to share about the draft coming into it blind and having never cubed before, I'd love to hear them.
A: I think sending out a list before might be a good idea. Or some examples of "ideal" decks or maybe some archetypes with examples. There's something cool about going in blind though.
J: (share cubetutor link for future)
A: I think it would be better if most people went in blind, you know? More even footing. Not that I felt disadvantaged, but I was a bit lost during the draft.
J: Yeah I get that. I was trying to create an exploratory draft experience, but I see how someone could feel lost...there's a lot of offbeat cards. I was really the only person with knowledge of the cube going into the night. Hopefully, if people like it enough to keep drafting, a metagame will develop. The list will stay largely the same with minor tweaks here and there.
A: I'm definitely down to try it again.



Both newcomers had fun, but felt a little lost in the draft. Both mentioned that they would've preferred to see the cube list before hand to have some idea of what to expect. I think it was a lot to ask someone to draft this cube as their first cube experience. Everyone did seem to enjoy themselves, and there were loads of memorable plays all night. Hopefully both of those guys keep coming out as everyone gets familiar with the meta. I only see things improving from here.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
That sounds great! Its not uncommon for new players to feel lost in the first draft, so as long as they wanted to come back, you should be in the clear.
 
That sounds great! Its not uncommon for new players to feel lost in the first draft, so as long as they wanted to come back, you should be in the clear.


In the past, I've been more mindful of newcomers by asking whether they wanted to see the list prior, or if they'd rather be surprised by the format. It slipped my mind this time, but I think it's good practice. Cubetutor is so useful in that regard.
 
3c Hatebears, 3-0







4c Lab Man, 1-1-1












Rector Pattern (me), 1-2









BUG Graveyard, 1-2










Bant Tokens, 0-3









I drafted the Rector Combo deck....I felt like I got all of the right pieces, but a combination of mana woes, graveyard hate, and timely disruption left me with a fairly poor record. The most decisive game I won was via turn four Artisan of Kozilek. A couple games were lost the turn before I combo'd out. I also suffered from a lack of early disruption.

The Lab Man deck had the most wacky games of the night. Won two games via Laboratory Maniac...lots of Life from the Loam action with Stormbind and Raven's Crime. The drafter said he picked up as much fixing as he could in the first pack, and it let him squeeze in a lot of cards that wouldn't typically be seen in the same deck. His tied match was due to time....it was nearing midnight and we all had to work in the morning.

The Hatebears deck locked everyone down via Phyrexian Revoker and Remorseful Cleric. Selfless Spirit and Dauntless Bodyguard protected his vital pieces, and Rally the Peasants, Signal Pest, and Purphoros pushed damage through. Ineffable Blessing drew him upwards of 8 cards a game at times. I think it's likely too good, and may get cut for Evolutionary Leap

Turns out 3 drafters started drafting dredge in the first pack...so that resulted in some stretched resources, late-draft pivoting, and less than optimal 20th-23rd inclusions.
 
Sorry, for sandbagging posts lately...just a lot of things running through my head, and I'm feeding off the energy of our last draft.

Pinning this here to think about more....



There's just so many good hatebears for this cube. It's hard to curate. Canonist has become pretty interesting to me. It can obviously be circumvented by running an artifact-centric deck, but also flash creatures. I've been noodling around with a disruptive azorius skies deck, and this is yet another card that teases me to investigate it.

U/W Tempo Denial


The worst part of this deck, and the main reason I've shied away from it, is that a lot of the components are good-stuff. I'd love to run Vendilion Clique and feel like it had a thematic purpose...This archetype would would require me to shake up a lot of slots to accomodate....Probably not going to happen, but I want to keep developing the idea.

Canonist slots very well into my existing Orzhov stax/weenie archetype:



Which also pivots into boros...slightly less well:




In a way it could be what I hoped Thalia, Guardian of Thraben would be for my cube...The creature to non-creature ratio of my cube just made Thalia impossible to build around.
 
How has Replenish been working for you? I want to try and pivot enchantments in my format to be a "Big" enchantments deck in W/B and possibly G/W. It seems like a cool payoff for drafting an enchantment deck in a higher-power format.
 
I like replenish. I’d held off on it, because I never felt like I had an adequate density of targets. One day, I realized that I could expect it to perform like a Breath of Life for enchantments instead of a Living Death and that unlocked a lot of potential for archetypes like Oath of Druids and Show and Tell.

A large part of its success is linked to the environment, it doesn’t work in most cubes. It has to be designed in.

I run:
 
I've been running through a couple tedious tasks to tweak the balance of colors (made it through green, red, and white so far). This included counting the number of p1p1 cards for each color, and adjusting to even the playing field. I also went through and counted resources available for each archetype, pulling from some, and adding to others.

This wacky speculative deck emerged during sample drafts:

Azorius Orb Control from CubeTutor.com













I didn't really envision Mesmeric Orb being in the same deck as Alhammarret's Archive, but here we are. I've tried a lot of different packages in Azorius colors to blend spells, enchantments, and artifacts so this makes me hopeful that I'm on the right track.

Blue and Black will be next. Followed by the Colorless section which definitely feels askew.
 
Azorius and Selesnya have long been the ugly step children of my cube so I'm putting a lot of attention into developing their archetypes....starting with a shift in Selesnya away from Berserkers Archetype towards more of a go wide Elf-Ball deck built around:



This provides some redundancy in making all your spuds generate "mana" to sneak out something nasty:



Or sink a lot of mana into something:


Additional support:



This all really makes me want to add Kitchen Finks back into the mix.
 
The next archetype for Selesnya I'm trying to boost is the Selesnya land matters deck. And yes, I did mention this archetype in the first post of this thread. The archetype vanished when cards like Rogue Elephant and Pack Guardian were rendered obsolete during the Combo Winter of my cube's development. It never really left, but its current state is so anemic that it requires ancillary support from Red or Black to have enough juice.

Here's some of the components I have to work with at the moment:











There's a more aggro slant to take the deck with Wild Mongrels and Berserks, but I think it's a little suspect.



One small change made to facilitate:

is now

The change doesn't remove any opportunities for Berserkers, but slants more towards the lands archetype. I'm also trying to trim out keywords whenever unnecessary and paladin was the only instance of soulbond in the cube...I've been looking for more instances to add revolt as a keyword, as well as unearth.

Some other options I'm considering:


Most of these cards have downsides for me....Many cards are possibly too strong: Titania, Balance, Scavenging Oooze....and others cards are too low power or redundant. I'm also wary of bringing in more land destruction as I feel a little saturated in that department, but I feel like the archetype needs more pieces to be successful.

Most of the retrace and landfall cards are too low-powered or conflict with the deck's primary goals.

I feel like adding Renegade Rallier, Titania, Protector of Argoth and Catastrophe back into the cube may be enough to firm up this strategy. If anyone has card suggestions, I'm all ears.
 
I like the idea of the elf-ball style deck, but it's pretty hard just to run it off earthcraft and Rishkar (who only works with creatures with counters on). If you wanted that as a theme, would you consider:



If you don't want to add them, you just have a ramp deck, nothing particularly elf-ball-ish.

Rishkar is fine, but he's the only one who works with the other counter cards to make them ramp, which makes him kind of essential for the deck to function, and he's pretty vulnerable.

There isn't much that makes it particularly selesyna, presume you would want some cards which gave you early tokens in white which you're a bit lacking on.

I'm a big fan of mirari's wake, which you have. I find it does a lot to support the GW ramp deck, and draws people into it (just ask Sigh). Ashnods Altar works here as well as you've said, but again is looking for token generators.

Right, onto lands. Lands is a difficult theme. There are so many cards that reference 'lands' there's a tendency just to throw the together and call them a theme. You need to try to think what you're trying to do with the theme in the first place.

It looks like what you're trying to do is move lands between play and graveyard to gain advantage either through the sacrifice of them or triggers when they return to play. Some of the components you've listed are a bit of stretch - tarmogoyf doesn't signal lands, it's just nice if you happen to have one if your graveyard. Criticisms aside, it does seem like a cool theme. You have plenty of ways to get lands back, it's just how you get them into the graveyard in the first place. Discard and self mill is relatively easy and you can pull them from other design strands, but you kind of want to have some more sacrifice stuff, particularly in white to embed it in selesyna if you can.

Solemn recruit is a good start for a swap. Would you want to consider angelic purge? I know it seems low power but it's good in a lot of different themes. The landfall cards are fine, they're generally good enough by themselves, but better if you're putting a lot of lands into play. I worry Titania is too strong, but might be okay for your environment. Cataclysm would work, but I'm personally not a fan. Also not good synergy in your go-wide elf-ball strategy. Emeria Shepherd? I'd focus on what white cards can support the strategy otherwise you're gonna have to warp green a lot (which I think would be fine, but you'll change the dynamic quite a lot). I like Emeria Angel here. Is Cenn's Enlistment too underpowered for you?

If you're going to have cards that can search for non-basics, do you want to consider the GW land that puts +1/+1 counters on creatures or makes saprolings? (Mind has gone name blank, sorry).

If you're having trouble with selesyna, you might want to look at your gold cards and what they are supporting/suggesting. Voice of Resurgence doesn't feel it's supporting much, just good stuff?
 
A lot of good points.

I mean Elfball in a loose sense.....its reliance on bodies keeps it from being generic ramp. I'm not sure how I feel about adding those pieces for redundancy. I do like Hierophants...the others seem a little narrow/low power for my liking.

I could possibly use another token generator in white, but I'm having a hard time finding one that fits the bill. Maybe I should just run Secure the Wastes which essentially doubles your mana with Earthcraft and Ashnod's Altar...and is stupid with Mirari's Wake. I've avoided running it for a long time as it just felt too bluntly good, but my cube's power level has risen enough to possibly accommodate it.

Until now, I've been leaning on white's creature-searching in place of tokens as a means of generating multiple bodies:



Reveillark recurs, and if I cut Voice of Resurgence to add Renegade Rallier I'd have a very Rebels-esque creature-chaining recursive toolbox that appeals to me. Rallier has the added bonus of recurring lands like Windswept Heath, Wasteland, and Horizon Canopy (which I've decided on adding in place of Scattered Groves)

I used to run Angelic Purge, then cut it for being low powered. Now I think it might be an easy fit...the exiling clause is very pertinent here. Perfect suggestion.

I also ran Emeria Angel for a little while, and can't remember the reason I cut it...maybe because it felt very midrange and durdly. It does work very well with the land recursion loops....occasionally setting up a big turn with something like Splendid Reclamation. I could possibly cut Karmic Guide....which I resent for its mindlessness alongside Lark. Emeria Shepherd and Cenn’s Enlistment are too low powered.


EDIT: Made those changes above, and this is the first deck I drafted:

Selesnya Elfball from CubeTutor.com












Just realized I forgot to include the Reveillark in the deck....Purge, Rallier, and Canopy bring a lot of cohesion to the guild. This already feels like a significant improvement.
 
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