Rasmus Riptide Cube (360 Unpowered)

[Rasmus Källqvist]

So I got a pen and notepad out and started going through what piece of roshambo the colors should focus on, and how the color pairs could look, to help me get more of an idea of what directions I wanted to go. This is not breaking any new grounds, but it's a nice basis for me when choosing cards and hopefully helps me make things less diluted. A list, without subthemes like lifegain, enchantments or welder/tinker:

• White: Aggro (Disruptive White Weenies + Tokens), Control (Wraths, Lifegain and Good Blockers)
• Blue: Tempo (Delver and Bounce), Control (Card Draw and Counterspells)
• Black: Aggro (Sac-Aggro), Control (Removal, Discard, Reanimator)
• Red: Aggro (Haste, Burn, RDW), Midrange (Burn and Sweepers into Titans)
• Green: Aggro (Experiment One into Bigger Creatures or Elves into turn two 3-drops) Midrange (Elves and Ramp into Fatties)

The pairs, with sort of what I imagine will draw people to play a certain style of that pair:

• WU: Tempo (Delver with Raise the Alarm and White Weenie with Lyev Skyknight and Remand) Control (a timeless classic, might run Supreme Verdict and Sphinx's Revelation in the gold section just to hammer it home)
• UB: Tempo (Thoughtseize, Delver and Sygg, River Cutthroat) Control (Thoughtseize and Counterspells, with Filterspells+ Reanimation and maybe new Simulgar as a finisher?)
• BR: Aggro (Sort of builds itself, one drops into some removal and burn. Could throw it a bone with Spike Jester. Both have sacrifice outlets so that plus threaten effects is a cute subtheme) Midrange (Thoughtseize into Arc Trail into Olivia)
• RG: Aggro (Zoo! big creatures and fast, also a deck that assembles itself. Could run Kird Ape to give it its own card) Midrange (Elves into Huntmaster or Bloodbraid Elf, some burn for removal)
• GW: Aggro (Little Kid / Hatebears with Qasali Pridemage) Midrange (Probably a bunch of value creatures, a little bit of flicker. Thragtusk + Restoration Angel)
• WB: Aggro (Thoughtseize White Weenie, with maybe Sculler or Sin Collector. Sculler is probably boring but helps the artifact count) Control (Sweepers and Removal, plus a subtheme of reanimation? Sun Titan from white and Obzedat's Aid in the gold section. WB is hard to give spice so I might just make it efficient. How obnoxious is Ashen Rider? Feels like a really strong incentive to build WB reanimator or control. White lifegain naturally pairs with a bunch of black life-paying)
• BG: Aggro (Lotleth Troll and Varolz and resilient creatures like strangleroot) Midrange (The Rock; Thragtusk + Disciple of Bolas + Phyrexian Reclamation. Not sure if it really needs a gold card, because the interaction between black recur and big green creatures has proven itself as a deck in this cube already. Abrupt Decay is in one of the gold slots atm and helps people into the pair even if its boring)
• GU: Tempo (Delver or Cloudfin Raptor based decks together with Edric, Spymaster and Horizon Chimera) Ramp (Elf-ramp into Sagu Mauler, with some card selection to help smooth out the combo-feel of ramp decks.)
• UR: Tempo (Pyromancer Delver or Stromkirk and Bounce-spells) Control (Counterspells, Electrolyze and Gelectrode, into Keranos, God of Storm)
• RW: Aggro (RDW with white removal or White Weenie with burn, both will probably want Lightning Helix) Midrange (Purphoros + Tokens, I'm removing almost all red tokens and have it as token-support only. Boros Reckoner will probably work too, nothing really fancy. Play burn and big white and red creatures)

I'd like to experiment more with using the gold section to really display the different archetypes. When things become more established I can probably be more liberal with my use of the gold cards, but right now I'd like to try this out. I'm going to go through each color-section and see what I can do to help solidify these archetypes, like cutting out on some red tokens, maybe softening up green aggro 2-drops a little bit, adding more white weenie cards, adding more dedicated control cards etc.

This might be an unexciting direction to take the cube, but it feels healthy as an exercise for me as a builder. Does it look like I've got anything super weird going on in the suggestions for the archetype focus? Got any experience with focusing your cube you think I should know about?

 

[Eric Chan]

That actually looks really sweet when you lay it all out like that. The only change I'd make is to turn BW into more of a midrange colour pair. Between the strong removal in the two colours, white's efficient creatures, and black's focus on attrition and two-for-ones, this colour pairing naturally lends itself to very grindy affairs. That's not to say that WB Human Aggro can't happen, because it's really sweet when it works. But typically the black life payment cards paired with white lifegain - hello, Vault of the Archangel! - means that the deck wants to grind out card advantage turn after turn, drag the game out over the long haul, surgically remove all relevant threats, and win in an ugly fashion. Even without explicit support, chances are that the deck already exists in your list.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

So you would see the pair as midrange and control by this roshambo model, rather than aggro & control? It sounds true, like, I think I've actually already grid drafted a WB lifefocused midrange deck so Might be able to run Obzedat v2, as a way to make people wanna utilise his lifegain in both colors. It's a it steep in color requirements maybe

 

[Eric Chan]

I would say midrange first and foremost, then aggro a distant second. Life payment paired with lifegain is a really sweet synergy that's naturally built into most cubes, with zero extra effort required, and it's equally satisfying for players to pull off.

If you want an explicit build-around, maybe Tithe Drinker or Underworld Coinsmith? Blind Hunter is really popular in pauper, but it costs the dreaded four mana.

edit: Can't forget the CML special, Vizkopa Guildmage. Modern playable! *ahem*

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I run both BW lifegain jerks and I love them. Not sure if I SHOULD be running both, but what can you do.

Blind Hunter is a really good card, even if it costs 4.

Those are all good suggestions, except the guildmage should prob just be vault of the archangel.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Is blind hunter good enough though in a list running 2 titans?

 

[Eric Chan]

Sun Titan is pretty innocuous - you have to work hard to get your value out of him - but I agree that Inferno Titan spells trouble for the little guy trying to get his sweet synergies going.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Is blind hunter good enough though in a list running 2 titans?

Yes it is. I run 2 titans and I would definitely consider running the card. In fact, there is a reasonable chance I will swap Obzedat for it in my next update.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I would say midrange first and foremost, then aggro a distant second. Life payment paired with lifegain is a really sweet synergy that's naturally built into most cubes, with zero extra effort required, and it's equally satisfying for players to pull off.

If you want an explicit build-around, maybe Tithe Drinker or Underworld Coinsmith? Blind Hunter is really popular in pauper, but it costs the dreaded four mana.

edit: Can't forget the CML special, Vizkopa Guildmage. Modern playable! *ahem*

I like that thinking. Coinsmith is an enchantment, which is something I'd like to bump up so I can run a subtheme of enchantments with rector, eidolon, pilgrim and enchantress. Blind Hunter is actually in a nice slot between pridemate and archangel of thune.


Maybe run this gold section? Might add mortify or vindicate if I want to adhere to Lucres theory of giving control wheelable removal.

edit: actually a line of carrion feeder, ajani's pridemate, kitchen finks, blind hunter on finks, archangel sac finks sac hunter sounds insane. (disregard the fact that this is actually an infinite combo without blind hunter, I just wanted to point out how sweet it is with black sac-outlets!)

edit: I'm still half in the market for Obzedat's aid as part of the future Tinker update, and Ashen Rider (or Angel of Despair since that one is hard-castable)

 

[Eric Chan]

I'm not a huge fan of Obzedat, Ghost Council, because in a cube environment CCDD cards at 4 to 6 mana are really tough to cast. +1 for Angel of Despair, though - that is one of my favourite cards, period.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I actually think you have a pretty reasonable removal suite right now. You have some pacifisim effects, doom blade and edict effects, burn and fight effects. Those all have limitations in some way, which should help them wheel in different circumstances.

However, you could add more color based conditions to your removal if you wished, but spread it into some of the other colors as well: putrefy for example.

Their are also some higher CC value black removal pieces that tend to tilt control:



I've seen silence and vapors ran in lists here, and Onderzeeboot was just talking about ribbons being good. Into the roil is more of a blue control bounce spell too, if you wanted to double up.

Cheap blockers are also nice, and you have a fair number of those.

You might not have to go too crazy though, some playgroups naturally gravitate towards control/midrange and you might have more of the opposite problem.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

This card was mentioned in the skype chat, and I really like that as well, since it sort of glues together the BW lifegain midrange deck with all kinds of assorted aggro. I could even see a naya zoo deck splash black for it, like, its really great. Less narrow than Obzedat. What about this for the gold section:



Aid being pretty borderline, but I like it as a real gold card where Unburial Rites sort of doesn't make you play WB in the same way. Lifegain / Reanimator feels like where I'm at right now.

 

[Eric Chan]

Obzedat's Aid is a little random - isn't Unburial Rites just better in every way? Rites is a card that actively pulls you into reanimator, whereas I would worry that Aid would wheel all night.

Aside from that, though, the B/W section looks like it's shaping up to be pretty sweet.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I guess. I think the idea was to utilize the big artifacts and cards like nicol bolas to bleed the tinker-stuff out a litte bit. Might just be pretty bad, running 3 cards or 3 + a removal card is probably just better.

 

[Jonas]

It's fun to reanimate stuff like Nicol Bolas, but people here have managed to convince me that obsaid sucks.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Their are also some higher CC value black removal pieces that tend to tilt control:



I've seen silence and vapors ran in lists here, and Onderzeeboot was just talking about ribbons being good. Into the roil is more of a blue control bounce spell too, if you wanted to double up.

Cheap blockers are also nice, and you have a fair number of those.

You might not have to go too crazy though, some playgroups naturally gravitate towards control/midrange and you might have more of the opposite problem.

I'm totally down with running vapors! I think I'll try out some tweaks with the gold section so it advertises the color pair themes more, and add some more dedicated control cards and see how it goes. If control doesn't get removal not ever I'll have to look pretty deep into it, but it should be alright as it is. Vapor's and maybe silence the believers (exiling removal though, I really want more of that) could def help as black controly removal. Thanks for taking a peek at the removal suite!

It's fun to reanimate stuff like Nicol Bolas, but people here have managed to convince me that obsaid sucks.

I think your players are right, and angel of despair and unburial rites are probably incentive enough to play WB/x reanimator without running janky cards in the gold section.

 

[Karl]

Why are you playing Rishadan Airship? I'm guessing it's a pet card, because overall it's a pretty awful card.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Why are you playing Rishadan Airship? I'm guessing it's a pet card, because overall it's a pretty awful card.

That's the reason! Besides, it's a human

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Green card-draw and card selection, using enchantments and graveyard? I was thinking something like this, as a start:

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/25428

So this is the big overhaul of the cube I did. I cut some stuff that clogs the board, tightened some things up. I'm going to proxy a ton of stuff up and see how it feels, I tried to have it a bit more focused around the archetypes of each pair and individual color. Should also be way more controly cards this time around! I've cheated and put a bunch of multicolor cards in the mono sections, but it's just a spreadsheet and it's where I think the cards will see most play. Hopefully I get to try it out this week, get more stuff in the 3-0 thread.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Give into your innate urge to go deep into artifacts. All of those sphinxs in your blue section won't make up for not running these bosses with more tinkers

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Dumping some ideas while on the bus.

I actually think Goblin Heelcutter is really good, as taking out their best blocker plus attacking for 3 immediately can represent a crapton of damage in the early game. Imagine you have a random 2/2 and 3/3, and they have a Wall of Omens. Normally you attack and hit them for 2. If instead you dash this, you smack them for 8 (!).

The main consideration is him versus Pyreheart Wolf, and I still have a soft spot for the little guy. All of these "can't block" guys are really good for giving RDW-style decks more dimensions, though, and help enable swarm aggro, as opposed to Lava Spike / Ball Lightning burn.

I think the idea if using cards like in the quote together with threaten effects to give a tempo feel to red sounds fun. You can leverage the tempo by getting in with stromkirk noble and goblin rabblemaster. Probably I can pair it up with a double strike theme like the one mentioned in this article by Chris Taylor. A bunch of hastecards and maybe searing blaze and searing blood?

Biggest question for me is, what cards really benefit from hitting the opponent on the face? Cards like Stromkirk.

Second idea

I'm probably going to use the new GG dude along with my old friend revered hunter and try to push green devotion along again, using the +1/+1 counters are a fallback/superbest friend. Ram-Gang looks good here (incidental goblin too), maybe Xenagos God of Revels and new Surrak (stealing "Gruul Thread themes)?

Any play Xenagos?


Is six mana Garruk awful or awesome?

I don't want to have too much devotion stuff going on at the same time, but I've already looked at +1/+1 counters in green and there's some support for it there that looks pretty good now that we have the sweet dragons of tarkir cards. renegade krasis even though the art is goofy as he'll might get its time in the lime light together with cytoplast rootkin.

+1/+1 counters and devotion being supported by the same cards seems like a way to be more explicit with the theme without making it all autopicking. Should you pick up a
that craterhoof behemoth and go for some more elves and take Nykthos in the ULD? Should you take that curse of predation and try to blow the gates open with a counter deck? Both possibilities after an avatar of the GG +1/+1 counter guy.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh hey chris taylor I know that guy
Also bloodthirst loves creatures getting through as much as stromkirk noble does

RE: Double strike, it can get out of hand quickly, and it shares the problem all synergy based archetypes have: Fencing Ace is a pile of poo just like Ajani's Pridemate, Hero of Iroas, and Gather the Townsfolk are when you draw badly.
I'd recommend keeping all the pump spells small. REALLY small. I restricted myself to a single card over +3/+3 and it was still waaaaaay too much. I'd emphasize a general pump spell size of +2/+2, maybe with some more permanent options or keywords added on. More Swift Justice than Groundswell. You might think Become Immense would be sweet with the theme but all it does is make non-games.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

It really is less a question of enabling a double strike theme, and more an issue of adding an aggro-combo deck to your cube. Like any combo deck, you'll want to have all of the pieces be independently useful for your power level (don't run fencing ace) and that players have the necessary disruption.

Where those decks are fun is where the aggro-combo player is positioning for the knock out strike, and the other player has to advance their game plan, while skillfully playing around the knock out turn. Where they aren't fun is where they really condense the game down to a race, making the games stressful and linear.