Peasant Cube (Working)

inscho

inscho

Cube Cobra Link in progress

Theros Beyond Death has really opened a lot of possibilities for Peasant Cubes, and with all the extra free time on my hands with self-quarantining, I've started tinkering with lists.

For reference, here was Peasant Cube in 2015. This is the list I had when I came over to this forum from MTGS. It was power max for peasant at the time, and was honestly a lot of fun to play. However, I was craving more of a combo component in my cube which led me to abandon it and lift the peasant restriction.

Which brought me to my Graveyard Combo Cube that's been in action since 2016. This has been my most successful cube, and at the very least this soiree in the peasant world may just end up informing a revision to this cube. Primary concerns of this cube has been the uniformity in dynamics in the archetypes and the denseness of the cube in general....it's very hard to escape complex decisions trees even when drafting aggro. Complexity is fine, but when it becomes too prevalent, it can grow arduous and taxing....not exactly the type of cube you crack some beers over and engage in a lively banter all night. That cube is chess, not checkers. I yearn for some airiness and brevity, and a less cumbersome drafting experience.

But.

I still like combos, flashy plays, and esoteric complexity....but I want to create ample space for other styles of play. I think I'll appreciate the diversity of the format, and my cube will appeal to more of my friends. I have friends that love drafting my main cube, and some that have tried it once, and never come back out for cube nights. The people that haven't come back are the ones that tend to gravitate more towards aggro and straightforward archetypes.

Since I'm at the very early stages of exploring this cube design, I'll just start by sharing some card groupings that I'm excited about...and then I'll see where it goes. Archetypes are mostly undefined, and I'm still familiarizing myself with the peasant card pool so suggestions are welcome.

Gro:

Sacrifice:

Splice Storm:

Untap:

Prison/Mill:

Life:

Spellslinger:

Double Strike:

Dredge:

Blink:

Berserkers:

Equipment/Auras: (+aforementioned double strike theme)

Tokens:

?

??:


???:

????:

That’s all I have for now
 
dbs

dbs

Love the card selection you've got going here. I figured I'd give it a whirl and see if I can give you any ideas. I'm probably going a bit too weird for where you want this cube to go so... free disposal.

I started by thinking maybe there's a less combo-y, more aggro +1/+1 theme. Might play well with persist but in this case as a value axis instead of a combo axis:



Having small attackers you want buffed plays well with the token theme in green and might dovetail into elves. You have a ton of untap effects which play super well with elves anyway, maybe there's a way to make a non-poisonous tribal subtheme:



Persist and tokens can go in the black direction too with your sacrifice cards. If you have some zombies and some elves around, maybe changelings could be a reasonable way to tie them together? You've also put tokens in white. There are some cool cards in the pool here mixing some of these ideas:



Or going blue you can turn small creatures into card advantage:



with changeling outcast sitting in the intersection. Untapping + tokens suggests a bridge into artifacts as well:



and if you're supporting splice storm and untap effects (frantic search) there are some real sweet crossovers:



Now that I'm on this path obviously we can go more durdley:



Which now connects back to the lifegain theme. One card I didn't notice in your original list is sunscourge champion.

Anyway, just throwing things out there. Good luck with the project and stay healthy!
 
inscho

inscho

No, please bring on the weird! Dump it all in here. I'd rather suffer from having too many ideas to sift through, and I prefer to avoid just a lower powered version of my main cube.

I fixed a broken tag in my first post...I had Tetsuko and Coastal Piracy in it...along with Raid Bombardment

I contemplated some loose tribal support mostly due to Undead Augur being so good. I wouldn't mind a Goblin Matron package of some kind. Viridian Joiner could be something to exploit with the available pump effects which could dump into something like Heroes' Bane or a Fireball effect? ...Devoted Druid with cheap pump effects is essentially a ritual effect....It's definitely something I'm interested, but I've never supported tribal before so it's new territory for me.

Azorius has pretty easy access to storm combos:






Spore Frog and Children of Korlis would be pretty funny alongside Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker. Children should be able to one-shot people with pay life effects and Cliffhaven Vampire, Sanguine Bond and Vizkopa Guildmage

It's all too easy to go infinite in peasant with persist creatures and



Not sure whether that fruit is a little too low hanging for me

Another card I'm interested in is:


I just feel like there's some fun stuff to do here with the likes of Dance with Devils, Arc Lightning type damage spreaders, and even double strike and trample interact favorably. It's a great card in its own right to boot.



There has to be some combo here between mill and graveyard exiling that is not coming to me at the moment.

It's really pretty incredible how much fuel peasant cubes have been gifted in recent sets.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dbs
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

I'm loving the look of this project so far!

One thing I will say is that you still should be running some "normal" aggro cards in your red section if you're trying to make a berserkers and a U/R Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive deck work. Your red-based aggressive decks just won't be able to function if they can only get a maximum of 5 two drops and not a single one drop creature to play. I'd say it's worth adding the three one-drops from your card pool list minus rigging runner. Since it appears black may also be looking to have a slight aggressive tinge to it as well, I'd suggest potentially adding Rakdos Cackler. Just try and get a high enough density of aggressive dudes into your aggressive colors so that your aggro drafters can fairly consistently have the 1-2-3 curve their going to be looking for and you'll be fine in that regard.

You could try weaving White blink and Red small dudes into a token strategy. Consider:


Recruit the Worthy is quite good here because it acts as both an enabler for your token decks, a cheap repeatable instant for your splicestorm deck, and a fine control finisher.


Also, I've been noticing that a lot of people in the Pauper Cube up on MTGO right now are just losing because their opponent is able to go wider than them. Now obviously a peasant cube is a lot different than a pauper cube, but the formats are similar enough where I would recommend really making sure you have a high density of board wipes so that control players can deal with the aggro decks. Consider:



Keep in mind that these wipes, although somewhat limited, will keep the "run you over" decks in check without completely destroying them. You don't need to run them all but some of them would be helpful in addition to the wraths you already run.

Also, I think Caustic Tar is kind of a bad card even with an untap theme. I think you'd get more milage out of something else.
 
Brad

Brad

I've been looking into a lower powered environment lately (see my Onslaught 2.0 draft sim for an idea) and I really like a lot of the ideas you have going here. I'll definitely be checking in on this. I'm really into the idea of 11C/3U/1R pack setups, so this could be a great outline to get those commons and uncommons working.

Militia Bugler for low power deck? Which I love, by the way. Oh and Maul Splicer is probably more playable than Summoner. You could consider a golem tribal deck or just having splicers for blink.

Also the splice control deck seems really cool. What a way to grind out a game. Not totally convinced I like the combo part, but the idea of the grind appeals to me for whatever reason.

I'd personally be careful with Wild Growth, it's a hell of an accelerant and this effect is easily found at 2-3 mana.
 
inscho

inscho

I've been looking at Heliod's Pilgrim packages, and stumbled across this card:



Good with some creature tap cards like:

As well as convoke:

Plus any creatures with tap effects:

Plus it's the ultimate Bramblesnap combo piece :D

Too cute?
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

inscho said:
I've been looking at Heliod's Pilgrim packages, and stumbled across this card:


Too cute?
Click to expand...

085.jpg

In all seriousness, Curse of Bounty is technically playable, but it won't often be better than an enchantment with the text "creatures you control gain vigilance." It will be fine with cards like Imperious Perfect and Merfolk Looter which have tap effects you may want to activate multiple times per turn cycle. It isn't very good with the ramp cards since you can't float mana and then cast something at sorcery speed with your untappers. The same can be said for most of the convoke cards, except for Sprout Swarm which plays more like an enchantment than an instant. I don't think it makes stuff like Diversionary Tactics playable.

Basically, you could do some cute stuff with it, but it's never going to be great. This card really wants to be in a commander deck with Vedalken Orrery and lots of mana rocks.
 
inscho

inscho

Hitting a bit of a wall with red's contributions to gruul archetypes. Outside of Berserkers, and adding a Fireball to green's ramp, I'm not really sure what to do with the guild.

There's sacrifice:


Which doesn't seem to have that many payoff cards that aren't slow as sin.

There's turbo ramp:


Which is just another way to attack with large creatures and not all that unlike the Berserker archetype...but more fragile and narrow.

There's Pinatas:


Which seems cute, and pretty bad....and doesn't really synergize with anything else my cube is doing....unless I bring in a host of pingers to play off Fatestitcher and Vizier of Tumbling Sands

Lands matters?


Maybe with Evolution Sage, but what's the payoff? Shrine of Burning Rage.....Triskelion? Red doesn't add a whole lot.

There's obviously some overlap between sacrifice and lands with incidental support like Harrow, Yavimaya Elder, Springbloom Druid

Rakdos has plenty of sacrifice support so maybe it should just extend into green and make it a Jund thing.

Any other archetypes I'm clearly missing?
 
  • Like
Reactions: dbs
inscho

inscho



Maybe this is a card that can help green contribute something to the sacrifice theme in a meaningful way with its high stat creatures....opening up some artifact synergies as well as life gain overlap in orzhov



Ok, maybe there’s not a lot to do in the artifact department. Still think the oven could be worthwhile :D
 
  • Like
Reactions: dbs
dbs

dbs

inscho said:


Maybe this is a card that can help green contribute something to the sacrifice theme in a meaningful way with its high stat creatures....opening up some artifact synergies as well as life gain overlap in orzhov



Ok, maybe there’s not a lot to do in the artifact department. Still think the oven could be worthwhile :D
Click to expand...

Is there space for a food mini-package to help span lifegain, artifacts, and sacrifice across green? Maybe the clunky nature of the tokens and gaining life is not worth it - depends on the speed of the environment I guess. But getting those Fangren Marauder life bursts sounds sweet.

Start with


then throw in:



Possibly a fun BG artifacts deck with say:


and maybe a bunch of black pay-life cards? Looking at the cards though, it feels like the power-level is a bit low relative to what you have so far. It doesn't quite work.
 
inscho

inscho

dbs said:
Is there space for a food mini-package to help span lifegain, artifacts, and sacrifice across green? Maybe the clunky nature of the tokens and gaining life is not worth it - depends on the speed of the environment I guess. But getting those Fangren Marauder life bursts sounds sweet.

Start with
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, trading post isn't peasant legal :(

Looking at the cards though, it feels like the power-level is a bit low relative to what you have so far. It doesn't quite work.
Click to expand...


This touches on something I was planning to post about next. I think that my power level is a little too high to allow for all guilds to flourish while sticking to peasant....I'm at a bit of an impasse: either I drop the power level further, or drop the peasant criteria.

Dropping the peasant criteria would probably land me somewhere close to bonzo's Alchemist Crucible. A list I adore, but stretches familiar muscle groups. I think I'll just stick to the Peasant restriction and see where it takes me for the moment.

The thought of dropping the power level down a notch had me looking at japahn's Elegant Cube a little more closely. For instance, I like the way enrage mechanic is integrated....



Which could slot in nicely if I lowered the power level.

Another issue I've already run into, that TrainmasterGT touched on earlier in this thread, is a tendency for most decks in peasant and pauper to go wide. Spider Spawning, Battle Screech, Murmuring Mystic, Anax, Hardened in the Forge, Squirrel Nest, Weaponcraft Enthusiast....all different means to arrive at a lot of bodies on the table. Peasant has such a great density of token generators that it is an easy design trap, one I already fell into it. Rather than expand the sweeper suite to compensate, I think I need to zero in on the archetypes that aren't trying to spam the board.....and there are more viable archetypes like that at a lower power level.

Which brings me back to the Elegant Cube....I'm having to think about board dynamics in way that I haven't really needed to in the Graveyard Combo Cube, and japahn's cube is giving me a lot to think about in that department. The GCC is mostly interested in simulating old extended formats and values a variety of axes of play with complex card interactions....in a vacuum, it's more of a rock, paper, scissors format....each deck does their own thing, and mostly interacts via disruption. Lowering the power level of a peasant cube will require a greater sensitivity to board dynamics. So thanks to japahn for providing plenty of food for thought!

All that said, I'd like to maintain some degree of explosiveness relative to the format, and I don't want strategies to exclusively rely on creatures in play and combat damage (I'm rarely happy if there's more than 5 creatures in my deck). I don't really know what that looks like at this point, but it's going to be fun to explore. Lifting the peasant restriction is still an option for me, but it's fun to work within arbitrary parameters.

Time to tear it down the studs!
 
inscho

inscho

Low Power List WIP

A Selesnya archetype I’m currently interested in:

“Exalted” tokens with a core of:


Maybe siege wurm? Any other good convoke fatties? I know these are good:



But I have trouble judging the other convoke creatures.

Toss in:


And it could also make this card borderline playable?


The deck is able to go aggressive with:


Along with the fight mechanic, and more traditional anthem effects.

Or slower and more reactive with:


This is where it gets really interesting to me. This can swing towards a purely control deck. I realize that Sprout Swarm might be GRBS in a lower powered cube, and there’s some other options to replace it. I just really like how thematic it is for this deck in particular.

There’s cross over with life gain:


And maybe even dbs’ favorite weather the storm

Or deeper into enchantments:


More aura/enchantments can allow it to pivot over to Berserkers:



It all seems reasonably tidy and doesn’t use many cards that lack crossover appeal.
 
inscho

inscho

Alfonzo Bonzo said:
Do you have room for

wayfaring temple

(uncommon in modern masters)

Sprout swarm is bullshit, don't do it.
Click to expand...



It would need to take one of the slots that Sigil of the Nayan Gods or Ironroot Warlord are occupying. Maybe Sigil could go if the Enchantment/Aura theme doesn't stick...though it does feel a little redundant

I stumbled across this really interesting list on Cube Cobra by user Purtagio which is a combo peasant cube, and beyond the infinite combos, I found a lot of interesting archetypes and cards to explore in my own list:

Namely, bringing the untap/tap mechanic into white instead of exclusively simic:



With the blink enablers resetting the Bell Ringer and Hussar...which could get pretty nasty with:



Another is adding a discard theme in Black:


and then I remembered one of my favorites from Invasion block standard was downgraded to an uncommon:


Currently debating on which of these I prefer:
or

Something tells me the more aggressive 2/2 body is more valuable.

Skullhunter and the Mummy, add a recursive disruption to the Orzhov pairing with:



and can be reset with white's blink spells.

I also thought it was pretty interesting to extend the Secrets of the Dead/ Burning Vengeance deck into black with:



But green could also be a good pairing with this core of red cards:



Green has plenty of ways to get lands in hand to reuse the retrace spells:


Winding way having the bonus of fueling your graveyard, and there's a lot of other cards that work to that effect like Sudden Reclamation, Grapple with the Past, Commune with the Gods, Mulch, etc

Add some flashback cards:


A lot of the green pieces are sorceries for Recoup....and the ramp in general is helpful for a mana-intensive deck such as this

This Gruul archetype seems much easier to integrate into the cube than some of the other ideas I was exploring.

One last thing that I'm looking into exploring is the aggressive side to the sacrifice mechanic in Rakdos with cards like:



This covers similar territory to the Hellbent archetype in the Graveyard Combo Cube....and I really enjoy the Hail Mary reckless desperation of that aggro deck.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

Everything about that post is great. You could go with some red spells matters to link to green, but the payoffs don't exist in green at peasant unfortunately.
 
inscho

inscho

Alfonzo Bonzo said:
Everything about that post is great. You could go with some red spells matters to link to green, but the payoffs don't exist in green at peasant unfortunately.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I agree. Green serves in a complimentary role in that archetype....which is fine, because my main issue was finding a Gruul archetype that would showcase more of red's offerings than green.

Thanks for the kind words!

I'm trying to clarify all of the archetypes/themes so I can start pruning the list a bit more, and I'm having difficulty fleshing everything out

WU: Blink, Prison, Tap Tempo <- fine here
UB: Self-mill control, Reanimator <- looking for another archetype
BR: Aristocrats, Suicide Aggro, Reanimator <- content with this spread
RG: Berserkers, Gravecast, Ramp <- fine here
GW: Exalted Tokens, Berserkers, <- need another archetype
WB: Aristocrats, Deadguy Ale, Life <- good spread
BG: Sacrifice Aggro, Dredge <- looking for another archetype
GU: Untap Ramp, Gro, ETB Value <- okayish here....ETB value is generic, and gro is looking a little odd as other archetypes crystallize
UR: Spellslinger, Gravecast, Counter-burn <- Spellslinger and gravecast are two versions of the same deck
RW: Tokens Anthem, Panic Aggro <- need another archetype


So I need to clarify the following guilds: Dimir, Selesnya, Golgari, Simic, Izzet, and Boros

No big deal! :(

Dimir:
There's saboteurs as discussed so much recently:


Things I like about the archetype:
- A tempo archetype which is noticeably lacking in my current list
- I get to run Tetsuko
- Pivots into white blink support as well as tappers
- Takes advantage of black's discard suite
- Pivots into red's panic effects and even threaten effects...burn clears the runway

Cons:
- Does not play well with the simic's tempo deck whether that be gro (currently) or a madness/dredge (prospective)
- I'll have to trim a lot of blue's card suite. Which is feeling a little bloated anyways.

Maybe that's it?


On the topic of trimming up the blue section, I'm having trouble balancing this group of cards:

Spell volume payoffs:


Draw trigger payoffs:


Grave trigger payoffs:


They blend so well into each other that I'm running them all currently. Which leads to a heaping crapload of izzet payoff cards that will drown out other strategies, and leaving little room to support more variety in blue.

I need to parse this out some.

I like the idea of the following cards adding to green for a gro deck of sorts:
Spellgorger Weird
Pyre Hound
Faerie Vandal
Brineborn Cutthroat
Oneirophage

To go with:
Obsessive Skinner
Werebear
Lorescale Coatl

But I think without breaking peasant to include the likes of Quirion Dryad and Deeproot Champion this archetype is too lean to support. Without gro, I guess simic can pivot towards a more traditional dredge/threshold aggro deck? *Sigh* more familiar paths....

The following enablers produce tokens:
Murmuring Mystic
Young Pyromancer
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
Crow Storm
Rise from the Tides
Improbable Alliance

This is a lot of board spammers....If the gro gets cut then Improbable Alliance should probably also go. It's the least interesting/flexible of the bunch, the most incremental, and the most difficult to interact with.

Crow Storm provides a unique dynamic that I value, but might be odd man out with the move to a lower-powered cube.

Young Pyromancer, Murmuring Mystic, and Saheeli are similarly redundant....do you cut one of these?

Even without the other draw payoffs, I want to keep Thundering Djinn as it is a perfectly fine control finisher and operates a little differently than the other payoff cards.

Rise from the Tides is one of the few payoff cards that can end a game decisively which seems pretty important when the deck tends to spin its wheels. It also pivots to other decks pretty easily.

I want to keep Secrets of the Dead and Burning Vengeance. It's some untrodden deck territory for me as it was too underpowered for the Graveyard Combo Cube.

Would love any suggestions. It's about this point my head starts getting hot.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

Gro isn't really a theme, it's cards that get bigger with different (though related) spell effects/card draw. I really don't like the cards that get bigger with card draw - a theme that rewards you for drawing cards, which is its own reward seems really lazy and uninteresting to me. I'd get rid of improbable alliance based on that.

I think pyromancer, mystic and saheeli are probably fine. Storm crow depends on what sort of storm count you're likely to be able to reach, probably most easy to drop as large number of spell velocity probably isn't supported?

For simic there's the option to go for a graveyard/velocity control deck, or a green take on the tempo deck:

Graveyard/Velocity/Control



Combined with saheeli, sublime artificer, murmuring mystic, secrets of the dead?

Have some high toughness early blockers, and up the green/blue/artifact removal a bit. This could also play into the untap/mill control version.

For the tempo version, keep the blue ninjas and the sabouteurs, and play up green 'evasion' and power matters (overlap with beserkers):



I think it would be fine.
 
inscho

inscho

Alfonzo Bonzo said:
Gro isn't really a theme, it's cards that get bigger with different (though related) spell effects/card draw.
Click to expand...

I consider Gro an archetype....albeit in peasant a very loose one. Pardon me, my IPA block nostalgia is showing. :D

I really don't like the cards that get bigger with card draw - a theme that rewards you for drawing cards, which is its own reward seems really lazy and uninteresting to me. I'd get rid of improbable alliance based on that.
Click to expand...

Fair. My thinking was Oneirophage and Lorescale Coatl were some of the more explosive "gro" creatures available to peasant. Chaining draw spells is easier than trying to say evolve a shambleshark quickly. Support is too thin in peasant.

I think pyromancer, mystic and saheeli are probably fine. Storm crow depends on what sort of storm count you're likely to be able to reach, probably most easy to drop as large number of spell velocity probably isn't supported?
Click to expand...

Yeah, storm support has been properly neutered in these latest updates. I think Splicer's Skill was my primary reason for keeping it in.

For simic there's the option to go for a graveyard/velocity control deck, or a green take on the tempo deck:

Graveyard/Velocity/Control

moment's peace gnaw to the bone elephant ambush beast attack grizzly fate oona's grace spring // mind

Combined with saheeli, sublime artificer, murmuring mystic, secrets of the dead?

Have some high toughness early blockers, and up the green/blue/artifact removal a bit. This could also play into the untap/mill control version.
Click to expand...

I've been slotting Reach of Branches over Beast Attack, but I suppose it doesn't really synergize with Secrets of the Dead and Burning Vengeance..running both seems like a bit much. The aggressive slant of Beast Attack is nice.

Beast Attack also feels better for the Gruul Burning Vengeance deck....still survives sweepers, but with enough power to threaten to end a game.

There's also:



Even one storm trigger makes it worthwhile.

At what point are either/both of these worthwhile:


I'm certainly going to be supported a critical mass of flashback soon enough.

For the tempo version, keep the blue ninjas and the sabouteurs, and play up green 'evasion' and power matters (overlap with beserkers):

gnarlwood dryad ambush viper rancor sylvan might briarhorn silent departure fatestitcher simic charm bounding krasis temporal spring ongoing investigation

I think it would be fine.
Click to expand...

I hadn't really considered the evasion quality of deathtouch. Good call there.



Although, I really dislike the protection on scryb ranger...Avenger is a little vanilla, but wears pants well.

Thanks for the input. I have plenty of food for thought!
 
  • Like
Reactions: dbs
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top