Inscho's Graveyard Combo Cube
- Thread starter inscho
- Start date
Is it too much to run both of these? 
I've been thinking about all of the applications with world shaper, and it does an awful lot of nutty stuff in this cube....but I do love Oracle oh so much...maybe I could cut Splendid Reclamation?
I've been thinking about all of the applications with world shaper, and it does an awful lot of nutty stuff in this cube....but I do love Oracle oh so much...maybe I could cut Splendid Reclamation?
It looks like we share some MTG sensibilities big time. My two questions:
(1) How does and ESPECIALLY play out?
(2) I had
in an early version of my cube but cut them because most mill decks want artifacts or card draw, not creatures. What type of decks want them exactly? I just couldn't figure out how to manage the tension between decks with a lot of creatures wanting to deal damage, and mill decks not caring about damage.
(1) How does
and ESPECIALLY play out?(2) I had
in an early version of my cube but cut them because most mill decks want artifacts or card draw, not creatures. What type of decks want them exactly? I just couldn't figure out how to manage the tension between decks with a lot of creatures wanting to deal damage, and mill decks not caring about damage.
It looks like we share some MTG sensibilities big time. My two questions:
(1) How does
(2) I had
in an early version of my cube but cut them because most mill decks want artifacts or card draw, not creatures. What type of decks want them exactly? I just couldn't figure out how to manage the tension between decks with a lot of creatures wanting to deal damage, and mill decks not caring about damage.
I first brought in Mindslaver to give the Tinker decks something to do other than pump a fatty out with felt redundant alongside all of the other creature cheat strategies. However, it's proven to be a generally great card in decks that ramp and in control decks that play the long game. There are locks with Welders and Academy Ruins...Ruins + Slaver lock is kept in check by the speed of the format, significant amount of graveyard hate, and resource denial. One unexpected bonus is that Mindslaver and Alhammaret's Archive opened a door for a Show and Tell/Tinker Control deck....Forbid locks and Sphinx's Revelation also supplement that control deck. Slaver mostly sees play alongside mana doublers, mana elves, and cheat packages.
Mesmeric Orb has been a revelation for my cube. It's still settling in to be honest, but offers a dynamic form of combo that isn't easily accessed in cubes that aren't powered/fully weaponized. Storm had been the only combo deck up that point that had the same type of railcoaster ride, white-knuckled magic games I love so much. A couple cards really important for Orb:
Both cards have obviously different goals alongside Orb. Blessing and friends keep you from milling out, Lab Man encourages you to mill out faster...which is where the other two cards come into play...Altar of Dementia and Extractor Demon. Important cards to pair alongside:
as well as the above mentioned Mesmeric Orb and Lab Man. My cube heavily emphasizes self-mill....Dementia + Stairwell usually means you mill yourself enough to kill via hasted tokens, or you mill enough to unearth Demon and sacrifice out to mill you opponent. Similarly with Twilight's Call....you can use it to set up a big recursive turn and win via attacking or milling. Really context dependent....I usually don't just start chipping away at my opponents library early. There's too many graveyard interactions to slowly mill your opponent as it often functions like increasing your opponent's handsize. I typically save it to set up a big turn or promote my own board development.
Demon has a backup role as a burn spell in the dredge and hellbent decks that usually just dump it into the graveyard to use as a go-to-the-dome finishing play.
Thanks for taking a look!
Cool - I never considered the link between creatures and mill being self-mill to fill the graveyard with more creatures. Right now I think my cube really struggles with consistently filling up the yard quickly. This makes me think I want to include Mesmeric Orb since it applies to multiple archetypes:
- fills up the yard really fast for reanimation, or all-in storm decks that can use the graveyard with Yawgmoth's Will or Rise from the Tides or Past in Flames. Storm decks get protected from milling out or losing key cards with Timetwister and Time Spiral. Maybe I throw in Loaming Shaman as protection for green dredge decks, and as a way to attack the opponent's graveyard.
- interesting prison card: creates an additional resource, i.e. the number of untaps you get given your library size, that prison decks can use for protection against combo. You can't go infinite with untap combo with orb in play - but if you don't draw a card you don't just lose... so if you mill out, you can still try to win that turn or find a loaming shaman. It also turns tap-down effects like icy manipulator into mill cards which is kinda neat.
I would have to watch it carefully, it feels like Mesmeric Orb would create some non-games where the opponent just literally can't cast enough spells to win without milling out. I think Extractor Demon and Altar of Dementia don't really have a place in my environment because I'm not quite as graveyard-centric as you your list.
- fills up the yard really fast for reanimation, or all-in storm decks that can use the graveyard with Yawgmoth's Will or Rise from the Tides or Past in Flames. Storm decks get protected from milling out or losing key cards with Timetwister and Time Spiral. Maybe I throw in Loaming Shaman as protection for green dredge decks, and as a way to attack the opponent's graveyard.
- interesting prison card: creates an additional resource, i.e. the number of untaps you get given your library size, that prison decks can use for protection against combo. You can't go infinite with untap combo with orb in play - but if you don't draw a card you don't just lose... so if you mill out, you can still try to win that turn or find a loaming shaman. It also turns tap-down effects like icy manipulator into mill cards which is kinda neat.
I would have to watch it carefully, it feels like Mesmeric Orb would create some non-games where the opponent just literally can't cast enough spells to win without milling out. I think Extractor Demon and Altar of Dementia don't really have a place in my environment because I'm not quite as graveyard-centric as you your list.
I definitely think Orb is worth testing in your cube. I keep trying to think of what Mesmeric Orb and Intruder Alarm work together to do in a deck.... Loaming Shaman has obviously been great for me, but it's hard to say how valuable it'll be for you.
I do feel that the usefulness of Altar and Demon are contingent upon degree of graveyard emphasis. They become pretty one-dimensional if you can't use them to impact both sides of the table. In my cube, there's a nice tension between when to target yourself or your opponent.
I do feel that the usefulness of Altar and Demon are contingent upon degree of graveyard emphasis. They become pretty one-dimensional if you can't use them to impact both sides of the table. In my cube, there's a nice tension between when to target yourself or your opponent.
You're exactly right, if Extractor only targets them it doesn't feel like a worthwhile inclusion.
Mesmeric Orb, Intruder Alarm, Psychic Spiral .dec let's go.
Mesmeric Orb, Intruder Alarm, Psychic Spiral .dec let's go.
Probably a little late to the party, but I think taht Mes Orb would be a great fit for you cube. It leads to all sorts of funky games ind interactions.
Here is a post from RBM that explains why it is a good build around card, all of which is still relevant to this day.
Here is a post from me where I have a video showing a couple of games with the Orb in the Twisted Colour Pie Cube to show why it is worth playing.
Card deserves a lot more love that it receives, and I think your playgroup will appreciate it's brilliance more so than a laymans cube would.
I've been looking at Orb with respect to RBM's post, and at the same time I was trying to figure out how to cut Divinity of Pride in favor of something less midrange-y that still supports lifegain triggers and I ended up brewing a couple hypothetical lists featuring:
I love the fact that Lich's Mastery rewards you for milling yourself out by converting that into an expanded life total and a big resource pool. It seems like a great fit for your cube but I'm uncertain if it works without a bunch of incidental lifegain sitting around. I envision Lich's Mastery letting you draw 10 cards in a turn and then dumping into the graveyard at the discard step. This is probably easier to consider in my environment because I don't have to worry about what aggro is doing.
The first I brewed featuring Intruder Alarm and creatures. I found several possible win conditions: milling them out with intruder alarm and Psychic Spiral, drawing a bunch of cards with lifegain and winning with Archangel of Thune triggers, self-mill with orb and mastery+lifegain into a big Living Death, getting to 40 with Felidar Soverign (e.g. with Soul Warden and Living Death), or possibly locking them out with Winter Orb and Fatestitcher.
Then I tried brewing a more reanimator-y BG shell that uses Zuran Orb, Courser of Kruphix and Gray Merchant of Asphodel as lifegain:
Finally, I tried to go deep a build a non-creature version featuring
and getting lifegain from Thopter Foundry and Sphinx's Revelation.
I love the fact that Lich's Mastery rewards you for milling yourself out by converting that into an expanded life total and a big resource pool. It seems like a great fit for your cube but I'm uncertain if it works without a bunch of incidental lifegain sitting around. I envision Lich's Mastery letting you draw 10 cards in a turn and then dumping into the graveyard at the discard step. This is probably easier to consider in my environment because I don't have to worry about what aggro is doing.
The first I brewed featuring Intruder Alarm and creatures. I found several possible win conditions: milling them out with intruder alarm and Psychic Spiral, drawing a bunch of cards with lifegain and winning with Archangel of Thune triggers, self-mill with orb and mastery+lifegain into a big Living Death, getting to 40 with Felidar Soverign (e.g. with Soul Warden and Living Death), or possibly locking them out with Winter Orb and Fatestitcher.
Esper Lich's Spiral
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Then I tried brewing a more reanimator-y BG shell that uses Zuran Orb, Courser of Kruphix and Gray Merchant of Asphodel as lifegain:
BG Dredge Mastery
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Finally, I tried to go deep a build a non-creature version featuring
and getting lifegain from Thopter Foundry and Sphinx's Revelation.
Lich's Welderslaver
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Those are some kooky decks...honestly seems like each deck should have access to easier engines to build around Mesmeric Orb than Lich's Mastery..the second deck for instance could use:
Toss in Fastbond for some low-hanging fruit.
I will say that your cube has made me call into question some of the midrange selections in my cube. For instance, I'm now thinking about the differences in these two cards:
I've been running Excavator as it is more sympathetic to graveyard antics, but graveyard antics so often gets mucked up in midrange durdle-fests. Courser has overlapping synergies, but has combo potential with the life gain triggers. Mesmeric Orb opened my eyes to graveyard combo that was a little more spicy than just a big Living Death. While I want my environment to allow for successful midrange decks, I feel that I could benefit by varying the axis of graveyard decks more by giving allowances for more combo and control focused graveyard synergies. I don't want the pendulum to swing as far towards combo as your cube, but it's providing some interesting perspective in thinking about what I'm trying to achieve in mine.
Toss in Fastbond for some low-hanging fruit.
I will say that your cube has made me call into question some of the midrange selections in my cube. For instance, I'm now thinking about the differences in these two cards:
I've been running Excavator as it is more sympathetic to graveyard antics, but graveyard antics so often gets mucked up in midrange durdle-fests. Courser has overlapping synergies, but has combo potential with the life gain triggers. Mesmeric Orb opened my eyes to graveyard combo that was a little more spicy than just a big Living Death. While I want my environment to allow for successful midrange decks, I feel that I could benefit by varying the axis of graveyard decks more by giving allowances for more combo and control focused graveyard synergies. I don't want the pendulum to swing as far towards combo as your cube, but it's providing some interesting perspective in thinking about what I'm trying to achieve in mine.
Those are some kooky decks...honestly seems like each deck should have access to easier engines to build around Mesmeric Orb than Lich's Mastery..the second deck for instance could use:
Toss in Fastbond for some low-hanging fruit.
Oh, I absolutely agree. Part of this exercise was justifying Lich's Mastery being a good inclusion for me lol. But more generally, I was trying to sketch out the overlapping deck-building space of mill, reanimator, sacrifice, lifegain, and artifacts, and how those can all variably bleed into one another. At the end of the day that's my number one most important design goal for the drafting experience itself.
But I think you've intelligently shown that that overlapping space also naturally extends into Lands with proper support. Excavator and Courser are both very welcome in my cube and I wouldn't cut either of them! I don't think I want to play The Gitrog Monster because it's a 6/6, but Turntimber Sower looks great (and infinite with Worm Harvest + Earthcraft). I don't want to include Fastbond because I strongly suspect it's too broken as a combo enabler and rampy game-ender. But I definitely enjoy this style of lands/graveyard/creatures engine.
More generally: regarding the sliding scale between midrange and combo, I think you actually have the right idea. When you're all the way in the midrange mode, you do a big living death and you basically win with the beefy creatures you've pulled. But when you're all the way in the combo mode, a big living death often means you almost-accidentally stumble into an infinite sac combo which doesn't actually feel any better. So your hypothesized approach of being in a place closer to the middle sounds right. I have a lot of work left to do to resolve this conflict myself. Maybe it would be consistent stay all the way combo oriented but include more ways of interacting with the opponent's graveyard (to take out 1 piece of the sac combo, and forcing them to find another way to win).
These types of thoughts usually lead me back to thinking Grillo's cube embodies what I'm trying to do better than the high power-band combo variants... e.g. stuff like the Fangren Marauder + Trading Post engine hits this graveyard synergy overlapping with artifacts, feels powerful, but the game keeps going without anyone feeling bad (but then again I've had Penny-Pincher v2 sleeved up for 16 months now so I've always got that lol).
To use a tired principle, I want all theaters of play (aggro, midrange, control, and combo) to be equally represented in my cube. I think a lot about my brief return to constructed magic a couple years back with the Modern format...I probably have my rose-colored glasses on, because it wasn't a perfect format, but it felt a lot healthier than the formats I'd experienced in my competitive days from Urza's to Mirridon 1.0. I really appreciated the diversity of the format, and how no deck was king for long. Lots of different axes of play represented in a constantly shifting format. A tangent, but I gravitated towards hatebears in particular as I love how aggro decks play out when they have to be attuned to the possibility of combo...I always like to reference the old 3-Deuce decks:
| Creatures (18) 4 Elvish Lyrist 4 River Boa 4 Skyshroud Elite 2 Dwarven Miner 4 Mogg Fanatic Spells (15) 4 Land Grant 3 Incinerate 4 Disenchant 4 Swords to Plowshares Artifacts (4) 4 Cursed Scroll Enchantments (4) 4 Rancor | Lands (20) 2 Mountain Valley 3 Plateau 4 Savannah 4 Taiga 3 Treetop Village 4 Wasteland |
Not a remarkable deck by contemporary standards, but it's important to note that this deck made waves during the peak of Trix combo...it was a pretty significant deck at the time, and made a big impression on me. I like the idea of an aggro strategy that can shift to play out like chess rather than it always coming down to an arms race (not to discount that tension and emotional high). It's a dynamic that really enjoyable for me. It's a dynamic that doesn't really exist in non-combo cubes, but at the same time often gets disincentivized in "combo" formats.
I obviously love the Penny Pincher cube. It was a gateway for me to exploring a more personalized format. However, the lower-powered formats ultimately fell a little short for me was they didn't really appeal to my preferred type of pacing and efficiency. I'm now at the point of looking for the threshold of power that can still maintain that subjective sense of balance. I'm not sure if you have the same inclinations, but it would seem so with how far you've pushed the combo component with your cube.
If anyone's curious I've been a bit home-ridden lately hence the flood of posting....
Very excited about a handful of the new Ravnica cards...this one in particular:
I don't support cards with morph so Grim Haruspex has been a no-go for me. This is one of the few cards on my wishlist for Wizards to print. Reaper opens up some sacrifice chaining combos that I'm interested in...several of these cards I noticed in Dom and dbs cubes:
The core:
Green:
Red:
On this topic, choose one package:
or
Very excited about a handful of the new Ravnica cards...this one in particular:
I don't support cards with morph so Grim Haruspex has been a no-go for me. This is one of the few cards on my wishlist for Wizards to print. Reaper opens up some sacrifice chaining combos that I'm interested in...several of these cards I noticed in Dom and dbs cubes:
The core:
Green:
Red:
On this topic, choose one package:
or
This is a pretty neat cube. It's cool how it feels like a snapshot of Extended or Legacy from years ago
I'm admittedly a huge fanboy of that era. as evidenced by my constant references to it throughout this thread...Nether-Go, Pox, Madness, Angry Tradewind, Rec-Sur, Oath/Turboland, Trinity Green, 3 Deuce, The Rock, Benzo, Pattern Burst...I think I largely base my Combo and Control archetypes on those old decks. However, I think a lot of my aggro and midrange strategies are shaped by contemporary archetypes. Which makes sense as creatures used to be pretty bad and now the inverse is true.
I'm gonna post an update on new cards and our latest cube draft, but I wanted to emphasize one finding here first:
This card really lived up to my expectations in the recurring sacrifice combo decks. I think nearly every time I cast the Hulk, I ended up getting two Hulk triggers in one turn. The tutoring effect + CMC flexibility is more impressive than I thought. It can give you access to all your toolbox cards e.g. Reclamation Sage and Eternal Witness, go find a bunch of bodies (I fetched Carrion Feeder, Zulaport Cutthroat, Elvish Visionary, and Deathrite Shaman in one game), or go get a combo piece/win condition e.g. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.
This gives it a real toolbox-y combo feel which I thoroughly enjoyed. Compare this to a card like Woodfall Primus which can very easily create linear non-games without anything interesting going on. I have Woodfall in for now, but I'm considering cutting it for something else like Hulk that's more involved.
This card really lived up to my expectations in the recurring sacrifice combo decks. I think nearly every time I cast the Hulk, I ended up getting two Hulk triggers in one turn. The tutoring effect + CMC flexibility is more impressive than I thought. It can give you access to all your toolbox cards e.g. Reclamation Sage and Eternal Witness, go find a bunch of bodies (I fetched Carrion Feeder, Zulaport Cutthroat, Elvish Visionary, and Deathrite Shaman in one game), or go get a combo piece/win condition e.g. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.
This gives it a real toolbox-y combo feel which I thoroughly enjoyed. Compare this to a card like Woodfall Primus which can very easily create linear non-games without anything interesting going on. I have Woodfall in for now, but I'm considering cutting it for something else like Hulk that's more involved.
The hulk is awesome. A blast with Sneak Attack.....and can do some nasty things fetching Academy Rector....and chaining with:
Alongside sac outlets.
EDIT: I run Woodfall alongside the Hulk as a Reanimator/Oath/Show and Tell/Ramp target. Hulk requires you to run more creatures than those decks often want, and isn't particularly intimidating in its own right. Getting the right balance of power for those juicy high end creatures has been very tricky for me.
Alongside sac outlets.
EDIT: I run Woodfall alongside the Hulk as a Reanimator/Oath/Show and Tell/Ramp target. Hulk requires you to run more creatures than those decks often want, and isn't particularly intimidating in its own right. Getting the right balance of power for those juicy high end creatures has been very tricky for me.
Updated the original post to include a brief summary, archetype breakdown and snapshots for each strategy. Not 100% happy, but even laying out everything in this manner is highlighting some discrepancies, redundancies, and lack of imagination in some archetypes. I'll update the pivot cards and build-arounds as well as the fringe archetypes sometime in the near future. Feeling a little burned-out thinking about my cube after this exercise tbh.
This is awesome
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Thats really helpful actually.
So BGW looks pretty clever. You have the pox pieces from BW that we might expect, but than fleshed out a neat little GW variation of it using the mass land destruction cards. Seems clever to me. I'm a little surprised that it didn't carry over more into BR though. Is the madness deck just better?
So BGW looks pretty clever. You have the pox pieces from BW that we might expect, but than fleshed out a neat little GW variation of it using the mass land destruction cards. Seems clever to me. I'm a little surprised that it didn't carry over more into BR though. Is the madness deck just better?
Wildfire definitely exists in rakdos. Rakdos, gruul, and izzet easily have 4th archetypes....many other colors have fringe strategies that crystallize when the drafting stars align. I think that's an advantage of using this format for communicating archetypes...you already started seeing associations that weren't explicitly stated.
But yes the hellbent deck is that good...and it's distinct enough to devote a slot to it in the guide imo. Maybe I should break the 3 archetype per guild format to accommodate the deeper guilds?
But yes the hellbent deck is that good...and it's distinct enough to devote a slot to it in the guide imo. Maybe I should break the 3 archetype per guild format to accommodate the deeper guilds?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think this is probably fine for drafters. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the other archetypes though, for my own interest.
I imagine part of why this works so well is that the graveyard interactions mean you can really turn the red looters into legitimate draw spells, strong enough to compete with blue?
So instead of having blue with the card advantage monopoly, red can cover that angle as well, and open up the non-blue combinations?
I imagine part of why this works so well is that the graveyard interactions mean you can really turn the red looters into legitimate draw spells, strong enough to compete with blue?
So instead of having blue with the card advantage monopoly, red can cover that angle as well, and open up the non-blue combinations?