Lucre Cube Redux - We live in a bounceland world now.

[Laz]

Welcome to the first post of a new exploration. If you are coming in here looking for a complete, polished list, well, you will be out of luck for a while. At the moment, this is simply a central repository of both good and bad ideas, as I sketch out a draft of a new cube, based loosely upon my older 'Draw a card cube' here, as well as taking some steps to incorporate a number of the ideas that have been explored here lately by Grillo Raveborn Muse and others.

Of those, the key things I want to explore is significantly reducing ETB creatures, as Grillo's musings on the effect that has had in his environment tugs upon my heartstrings. I am also keen to reevaluate the Cycling and Madness themes I had in my original list in light of the new printings in SOI and Amonkhet.

As I said, I am very early in my exploration, so watch for this post to grow.

 

[Laz]

First thoughts, to help determine power level. I want these cards to be exciting high-picks in the format:


Also possibly Teysa, Orzhov Scion, and possibly Mistfire Adept? The latter is currently an absolute powerhouse, and the UW Heroic/Prowess deck is a blast to play, though I am not sure how they will fit into the format as I explore wider.

I am also keen to have Chromatic Star be a wide-spread utility player, though this could simply represent 'a cheap artifact that goes to the graveyard, potentially cantripping', so could be spell-bombs or similar.

These all represent nodes on a loose mental map of cross synergies, with cards like Marionette Master immediately jumping to mind to suggest a potential crossover between sacrifice themes and artifact themes.
I am not totally sure how to translate my mental image into more than a wall of text. Maybe there can be some beautiful diagram once I have things better worked out.
I want to push Madness across Grixis, but that is a value-add more than a deck. Graveyard synergies are likely going to be across most of the list, and I like how Grillo has approached that by using the graveyard to provide card advantage to the Abzan colours, who are normally left a little high and dry. The power level of reanimation that I have in the Lucre cube at present is also very solid, mostly relying upon reanimating big dumb cycling creatures, with Eternal Dragon representing the top end. The 'Stars' (those aforementioned cheap cantripping artifacts) trigger Prowess, which has proved to be a lot of fun, as well as helping with Delirium, alongside the ability to cycle other card types into the yard.
Looters help hold all of this together, by discarding cards for Madness, allowing for card advantage with the 'return two cards of specific types from the graveyard' cards in Abzan, providing redundancy to the Reanimation deck's cycling creatures and better enabling delirium.
An interesting question is how might Metalcraft play into the list? Fabricate is awesome for providing a 'barrel o' artifacts' at once, and probably combines well with Goblin Bushwacker-style effects for an interesting aggressive angle, but I am not sure how this crosses over with the rest of the list. Investigate as a control tool?

 

[Laz]

Ok, lets explore this 'cheap artifacts as a utility piece across decks' concept a little.

First up, aggressive decks.

Straight-up Glint Hawk might be pushing it, especially if I go down the token artifact path with Clues and Fabricate.

On the topic of Fabricate, lets see if we can take another approach to that idea. It looks like we might be going small artifact aggro with WR, but what if we can get red to support a go-wide approach too?

WR can get in on both axis with Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer

Cheap aggressive cards which support artifacts:

Are we in deep enough that Flamewright becomes interesting? Possibly if there are enough 1-toughness creatures floating around, or if for some reason several posts from now there is a picture of Vent Sentinel but it seems unlikely.

This theme can shift over to incorporate black, with creatures such as Weaponcraft Enthusiast offering a handful of Servos if required, Marionette Master acting as a funky build around/kill condition and Sly Requisitioner as something of an engine piece, who rewards you handsomely for sacrificing Stars, Spellbombs, etc. all the while being made cheaper by Clues. It is certainly worth mentioned Gild here as a somewhat forgotten, but very cool removal spell (and our first introduction to artifact tokens!). It is probably too early to tell if it should instead be King Macar, the Gold-Cursed to potentially work alongside an untap theme to go with bouncelands (still need someway to tap him though...).

On the control side, I don't see a lot of strong incentives artifacts, which I have to imagine would mostly be Clues. Argent Sphinx is sweet, and Glassdust Hulk both has Cycling and is friggin' awesome, but asides from that, I don't know if it is worth it. Maybe just emphasise Delerium in midrange decks?

Bunch of cards without comment, to remind myself that they exist. Whether they fit, I don't know yet, but they are interesting.
Thopter Engineer
Galvanic Blast
Rusted Relic
Hidden Stockpile
Origin Spellbomb
Kuldotha Phoenix

 

[Laz]

Alright, I should probably vomit some more ideas here. If I don't write things down, nothing is going to get done.

White, from the last post, has a bit of aggression happening. Now, in my current iteration of this style of cube, I have dabbled with UW Prowess as an aggressive deck, and it has proved both interesting to build and play. In that instance, I was pushing Heroic/Prowess, mostly to combine with a GW Auras theme, but that theme was only middlingly successful, and it probably isn't worth trying to recreate. I will have to work out what GW is doing at some stage, but problem for another day.

Anyway, the card that stirred my thinking was this:

Expensive, probably too expensive for any sort of real aggro deck, but growing off of artifacts coming into play reminded me that Prowess doesn't ask for instants or sorceries, it asks for 'non-creature spells'...

All those 'cheap artifacts as a utility piece across decks' all happen to be non-creature spells that trigger prowess. I don't know if these are as interesting as the cantripping instants I was running like Mental Note as they can't be used as combat tricks, but I hardly think I am going to be too light on those.
The big draw to Prowess in a list of this power level is likely going to be Mistfire Adept, whose ability to both swing as a 4/4 flier without much effort, as well as jump other creatures is a big deal. I am not sure what complements it though. I excluded Seeker of the Way from my previous list, but this one looks to be a bit more powerful and so is probably a good inclusion, Jeskai Elder is also a nice card in a list that wants looters to hold things together, but the body might be outclassed a little quickly. Elusive Spellfist probably makes at least the first draft of a list.
I would love to include this guy:

Partly I want to include him because he is so cute, plus I suspect he overlaps nicely with other graveyard themes and related cards such as Rise from the Tides. Maybe I simply shouldn't sweat it too much and assume a semi-aggressive Blue deck will possibly thanks to solid flyers, such as Stitched Drake.

Cards without comment that I thought of while writing this:
Bedlam Reveler
Seals of X
Sinister Concoction
... ok I admit it, I was doing a lot of thinking about Delirium.

 

[Laz]

Lets talk about some cool cards from Commander 2016.



I am not sure if I have made it clear as to how much I love cycling, as it hasn't been the discussion until this point, but having these sorts of modal cards which smooth out draws and reduce mana screw is fantastic for an environment.
This cycle was released in Commander 2016, and I would love to shape my list slightly to better fit their front-side, even if I suspect they will be cycled pretty regularly.
I have previously spoken about pushing go-wide in Red, but it may be that I can shift some of that into WR, to increase the value of the 4 fliers from Migratory Route beyond that of acting as chump blockers.
Ancient Excavation offering a way to loot your whole hand seems awesome in a format which I have already said will likely be held together by looters. While it will take a heap of mana to utilise it alongside madness cards, being able to activate delirium at instant speed, or stock up the yard for later 'spells in graveyard' or reanimation effects seems legitimate. It may be that I skew Red madness towards aggressive cards, Blue madness towards card advantage and controlling effects, and Black madness cards somewhere in the middle. In this manner, Ancient Excavation can serve as a stronger late game play where there will be mana available to cast cards discarded with Madness. There may not be the density of cards with Madness to be this picky though.
Sylvan Reclamation is just a solid effect, will likely be cycled pretty often, but is still an effect I want access to in my list. In my higher powered list I have added Dissenter's Deliverance and Forsake the Worldly, and in the few drafts I have had since their inclusion, they have been main-decked pretty frequently.
Grave Upheaval complements planned reanimation themes in Jund, taking advantage of Cycling creatures, though 6 mana is a lot to return a Krosan Tusker or similar. It may be cycled more often, even if aggressive decks in those colours are unlikely to need vast quantities of mana.
Treacherous Terrain is by far the least compatible of the effects with what I am looking to do in this cube, not only costing a billion mana, but being pretty clearly targeted for multiplayer. It might be interesting to replace it with a custom that ties in a little better with the themes being explored. My current thought is something like this:

Instant?
~ deals damage to target creature or player equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard.
Basic landcycling

Who knows... for now, flex slot (or Fiery Fall)

Something interesting to consider when including these cards is the quantity of mana-fixing available, and what that will likely do for access to colours. I plan to have the following resources available to drafters for mana fixing:
Mountain/Forest/etc Cycling - from cards like Chartooth Cougar, Twisted Abomination, Eternal Dragon - Combined with the typed Cycling lands from Amonkhet (Canyon Slough, et al.), these provide a lot of access to colours.
Basic landcycling - The cards here, as well as Ash Barrens make it pretty easy to splash off of 1-2 basics.
Chromatic Stars/Spheres/Terrarions - One shot access to off-colours can help to facilitate splashing for powerful effects.

This is in addition to fixing lands, which will likely be some combination of Bicycle lands and Bounce lands.
It all adds up to a lot of access to splash colours, but I am not sure what I want to do with it yet. Powerful and splashy gold cards? Off-colour flashback effects? Do I restrain CC cards in order to allow my drafters to embrace it more, or push powerful effects in CC? Grump. Environments are difficult.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Hey Laz, I've been reluctant to approach because I worry that my own postings might too strongly dominate the conversation, and stifle your creativity. A lot of the ground that Lucre wanted to cover ended up getting covered by both versions of the penny cube, and this second version ended up running a lot of the same cards he was interested in (grim discovery, sudden reclamation etc), and I'm seeing a lot of overlap between some of the stuff I've been posting/experimenting with, and which you're going over here. Thats fine, unless you're trying to get to a place thats different from where I've already been, or if you want to provide a different perspective on those themes. I think the bounceland format concept is incredibly deep, and I've probably barely scratched the surface.

I don't want to take the problem from you, but I'm not sure what the problem is, which makes it hard to contribute.

 

[Laz]

Well, I appreciate you stopping by Grillo.
I have been using this far more in the 'Cube Blog' style than the 'Cube Lists and Feedback' style, mostly dumping my own thoughts rather than soliciting feedback. I hope that once I get to the point of tuning, I will be able to get some feedback, but until then it is far more of a stream of consciousness design blog. I know that I am treading a lot of space that you have explored, and the Penny Pincher lists are solid inspiration, however, what I am going through at the moment it attempting to stumble into my own overlapping web of interactions. At the moment I am picking and exploring those themes that I haven't already explored in my own 'draw-a-card' cube, and a lot of those are inspired by the excellent work that you, among others, have done previously. While I am walking some of the paths you have already explored, it is because that exploration has shown that there is plenty more to discover, and I hope that by combining this with the exploration I have already done in my cycling cube I can end up in a new and interesting place, though perhaps it may not be entirely unfamiliar.