Jason Waddell's Cube

Lucre

Lucre

Jason Waddell said:
I mean, I like the synergy in the card. But I also wonder if most decks wouldn't just want, like, this guy:
Image.ashx


The card design is pretty far off from my experience bank though, and I imagine it's easy to either best-case scenario or worst-case scenario the card. I'll test it, but I'm also not eager for another narrow card that will only fit in the small, disposable creatures deck. Maybe for the Eldrazi Domain cube that has a lot more caring about Morbid and a lot more disposable creatures.
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That card makes me wish rubblebelt maka was just a little better. Ie they would print more cards that are straight better giant growth.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
xyz said:
Given that you push your sacrifice theme as far as to include Act of Treason and Mark of Mutiny, have you considered repeatable steal effects like Old Man of the Sea and Preacher to foster more cross color synergy? (Is Simic Manipulator anywhere close to those two?) I guess though they're hard to splash in a red/black deck, but on the other hand they might encourage their own little decks. Also, thoughts on Perilous Research and Altar's Reap as sacrifice thingers?
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These aren't bad suggestion. I did put in Vedalken Shackles over Treachery for this reason, but so far that hasn't come together either. I think that Old Man and Preacher provide synergy in theory, but it's one of those things where the deck might just never come together. I'll give it a look though, Preacher looks fun.

On Altar's Reap & Perilous Research... the thing about the sacrifice triggers is that they either need to cost no mana to activate so that they can work with the Threaten effects, or be beneficial in some way ala Varolz, Aristocrats, Carrion Feeder. Drawing two for two mana is so marginal compared to the hoop being asked to jump through that only the dedicated sacrifice decks will even look at the card, and even then it probably misses their final 40.
 
xyz

xyz

Jason Waddell said:
On Altar's Reap & Perilous Research... the thing about the sacrifice triggers is that they either need to cost no mana to activate so that they can work with the Threaten effects, or be beneficial in some way ala Varolz, Aristocrats, Carrion Feeder. Drawing two for two mana is so marginal compared to the hoop being asked to jump through that only the dedicated sacrifice decks will even look at the card, and even then it probably misses their final 40.
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Are you sure of this part? I'm not intimate with the intricacies of your cube, but if black decks have enough disposable recurring creatures, the sacrifice doesn't seem too bad and instant speed 2 for 2 mana provides great velocity in my opinion. I had considered Altar's Reap for my cube in the past (Perilous Research is more of a stretch), but dismissed it as low impact. However, I have been having extremely good experiences with it in M14 draft along side cards like Young Pyromancer, Hive Stirrings, Trading Post, and Dragon Egg and that's got me to thinking about potential cube applications. It's potentially the best black draw spell? Getting advantage off of opposing removal is also sweet, especially against exile or tuck effects, since black often wants the creatures in the grave instead. I'm not sure deck NEEDS to be sacrificing to want it is what I'm getting at.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Hmm... well, I'm not sure, but even if I'm wrong, I'll say this much: I think it's important to watch the density of these sacrifice effects. You make good points, but they all kind of rely on the presence of disposable bodies. I'd also like players to be able to build non-sacrifice black decks, and the more you load up on cards like Altar's Reap the harder that becomes. If I'm going for a black control deck, I start to feel like too many of the cards in the pack (and in my color) are dead.

I know it's not a great answer and my thoughts are a little vague here. I did overlook the card being an instant, as you make good points about responding to removal. But these decks also already have a lot of instant-speed sacrifice effects, and fighting against a Carrion Feeder deck is already very tricky.

Lastly, I'll give the Travis Woo answer: suggest a cut! I'll try most cards, but something else has got to go. Take a gander at the list and present an argument. I think you've got some good thoughts here and am interested in what you come up with.
 
xyz

xyz

I'm not sure either! :) I'm just looking for thoughts and discussion really. I have a hard enough time considering fitting it into my own list, which is bigger and slightly less powerful. If I had to throw something out there (in the dark with no experience with your cube) I'd say Stupor or Smallpox.

Stupor just seems underpowered to me. It's a three mana sorcery that doesnt impact the board and is not tons better than Mind Rot. Perhaps Hymn to Tourac has spoiled me though. :p In my own cube, black midrange/aggro decks tend to be more synergy based and want more cohesive 3 drops than Stupor...sometimes they don't even want Hymn to Tourac that much. (One mana discard is still great because of the cost). Against aggro/midrange I think control decks also prefer board interaction at that price. I can see it being good in control vs control though.

Smallpox is another card we tried and cut. It certainly is powerful, but it seems to be a narrower sacrifice themed card than Altar's Reap. The payout is greater, but it's less flexible and less decks will want it, in my experience. I can see it being a lot different for you since you have 4x Gravecrawler and 2x Bloodghast. I also think the card draw provides the deck with a lot of consistency to set up a smooth engine, which I value over spiking a pox effect which may come at the wrong time.

I agree with your concern about density of sacrifice effects; I am worried my list might be starting to push the boundaries there too. In the end though, I believe the nature of cube (powerful cards, 2 for 1s) will always allow for control decks. 4-5 cheap blockers/interactions (like how SGG played Voice of Resurrgence in their PT-DGM deck... aggressively costed creatures with good rates can always go in a control deck even if R&D intended for them to attack...also think Strangleroot Geist or Boros Reckoner)+ a nice helping of 3-5 mana 2for1s + 2-3 over the top finishers is a fine formula in color, and I think you'd have to cut a lot for that not to work. Jund in standard right now is a perfect example (although people might disagree on calling it a control deck I guess) of how a lot of card advantage together in a deck is an easy recipe for being the control deck in a matchup.

Finally, what really opened my eyes was that those M14 decks I was telling you about were control decks!!!! It seems pigeonholed into sacrificing for value with recursive/value creature or threaten effects, and that's the combo people think of in M14 too, but sacrificing chump blockers or removed blockers is great too, and the added benefit is that costing less really helps the control deck to do more things. I'll post one of the M14 lists I drafted (possibly my favorite draft ever) to show what I mean after I get back from FNM :p.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
The problem with Smallpox as I see it is that it is godlike on the play and awful on the draw, mostly. F die roll formats
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Interesting. Our Pod decks are always doing ridiculous things with Restoration Angel it seems, so I haven't seen the "weak to fliers" bit yet. But that could also be due to our green decks being more multicolor than yours?
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Rob Dennis said:
I'm running 4x birthing pod and my players have noticed some green weakness against flyers. They're not wrong and I'm going to try some penumbra spider's at the 4 (I don't run vengevine). I then noticed that it's kind of nice to get some "free" pod activations. I'll report back.
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I've considered running Stingerfling Spider in my own cube to combat this exact same weakness in green, though five mana is a tad unwieldy. Cloudthresher is another notable anti-flyer hate card. Penumbra Spider does a much sweeter dance with Pod, though, I'll agree.
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Eric Chan said:
I've considered running Stingerfling Spider in my own cube to combat this exact same weakness in green, though five mana is a tad unwieldy. Cloudthresher is another notable anti-flyer hate card. Penumbra Spider does a much sweeter dance with Pod, though, I'll agree.
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my latest build has cloudthresher in at 6 (along with baloths and titan) and I'm curious to see how it'll play; since I get to grid draft with some co-workers tomorrow
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
Jason Waddell said:
Interesting. Our Pod decks are always doing ridiculous things with Restoration Angel it seems, so I haven't seen the "weak to fliers" bit yet. But that could also be due to our green decks being more multicolor than yours?
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perhaps, my drafts since breaking singleton have been pretty small so I'm unsure how much to respect the results (on the one hand, maybe 6 is the best I'm going get and should design around it)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
You draft for them. You feel pretty beastly going (Voice of Resurgence / Perilous Myr) -> (Kitchen Finks / Blade Splicer) -> (Restoration Angel / Murderous Redcap) -> (Reveillark / Vorapede) -> Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
 
CML

CML

Contributor
but how do you keep them in your library (one of many problems with modern kiki-pod, aside from a manabase that makes british dentition look color-coordinated)

i think i'd want to play ~50 cards to make enough room for (lands, dorks, pods, bullets).

how do these decks end up looking?

aside from that i also wanted to ask you about these numbers: pillage, zombie cutthroat, undying evil

edit: i just opened my machine again because i remembered there were zombies so i wanted to scream at you to run rotlung reanimator but it turns out that there aren't so many clerics (though in my cube they outnumber zombies 7 to 4)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Uh... well, you go for whichever one is not in your hand. And these decks can usually just cast their stuff too. I still think that 40 is usually a correct, you only need a few at each CMC.

Here's a pod deck that went undefeated in a 4-man:
sJWzWmu.jpg


Pillage is great and flexible, Cutthroat is fun but will probably make way for Lifebane Zombie when I finally pick one up, Undying Evil is a good card that is super powerful and surprising in the right circumstances and does dirty things with Evoke creatures.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Awwww yeah. Very nice, looks fun.

So you're saying it takes somewhere between very little and no warping of the Cube to fit the Pod theme in?

How many Pods in a 405 would I need to support the theme?
 
Rob Dennis

Rob Dennis

Developer
if you're like me and balked at the upfront cost, then remember how much ramp (both land and spells) you're playing and there's probably some relatively easy cuts (the 3rd llanowar elf, one of the cultivates, something like that)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Stifle is a fun role player that some players here are absurdly enamored with. Stifling a fetchland feels as good as you would expect.
 
Thomas David Baker

Thomas David Baker

I'm a secret admirer of this cube. After drafting it a lot of times on cubetutor I proxied it up and took it to GP Oakland and I've been playing with it all week. It is awesome. I'm now back in my homeland and I'm going to be playing it in central London tomorrow, too. (Penderel's Oak in Holborn on Saturday 31st at 12pm if there are any London-dwellers on this forum!)

I see from http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/759 that you made the following changes post-M14:

< Bloodbraid Elf
> Huntmaster of the Fells

< Chandra, the Firebrand
> Chandra, Pyromaster

< Lotleth Troll
> Varolz, the Scar-Striped

< Greater Gargadon
> Young Pyromancer

< Zombie Cutthroat
> Lifebane Zombie

< Reins of Power
> Sphinx's Revelation

< Venser, the Sojourner
> Brainstorm

I had been wondering about Reins of Power and Zombie Cutthroat and although some of the cards that have gone are awesome (Lotleth Troll and Bloodbraid Elf!) the replacements all look great. Everyone loves the Brainstorm-fetchland interaction.

It would be cool if you used Cube Tutor's update option in future rather than deleting and recreating the whole list but I suspect you have your own list management going on that makes that less practical.

Anyway, not much to say just thanks for your great work on this cube and for sharing it - you are bringing enjoyment to the cubers of California and London!
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Jason, what do your control decks normally look like and how good are they? I've been finding that in a creature-centric Cube with lots of contextually powerful cards instead of haymakers it's hard to put a decent control deck together.

Thomas, are you going to the SCG event in Cardiff in a few weeks?
 
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