Rasmus Riptide Cube (360 Unpowered)

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Good point on the fencing ace. I recently cut it for size constraints but probably adding it back with another friend when I feel like supporting a double-strike theme is the wrong way? Also, the idea wasn't to run double strike it was just an overlap with the threaten effects and tempo-feel of what I wanted to do with red. The comments on definitely still applies though.

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.

I'm not really sure in what way I'd like to add combo aggro (in the sense that you set up for a one turn kill rather than grind out with synergy like with champion and sac-aggro) to the cube yet, mostly because I feel I have had to play a lot more with the cube before I know in what way I want to pull it off. Maybe the red deck is where I should do this?

Esper AetherTusk Control

I played an 8-man yesterday friday, and the winning deck was this esper control deck splashing for a thragtusk off aether searcherer. I got to play against it and it was pretty tight, but I was playing a 4-colored durdle deck that couldve been tighter but as cube owner I felt it propper I should try to go really deep (and not always get there ). Toxic Deluge and Damnation proved enough to support for a UB control deck, and Aether Searcherer got to act as a control wincon, which wasn't what I was expecting, so I'm thoroughly happy with slotting it in. Good card to cheat in, and good enough for control if you get enough of a value pick. The variance might be its doom down the line but right now both me and my drafters seem to like it.

One player, the store owner who also manages a cube, had a naya beatdown deck. I didn't get to see it in too much detail, but he faced of the 2nd place Gruul Ramp player where I said he felt he didn't have a way to interact with the ramp players really big spells? He had Huntmaster and Bloodbraid Elf to bridge him into Staff of Nin and Steel Hellkite next to Avenger of Zendikar. I think I had someone else play the Duplicant I added but all my big tinker targets saw play outside of cheating decks! The Gruul player managed to snag up every ramp spell I had in the cube I think as well as some mana rocks, so it was an incredibly tight deck.

I'm unsure what the problem was in terms of its speed versus the other decks (according to the Naya player), I think it might've been that it was just a lot of mana dorks and ramp that was played into some really good cards, but the Naya player noted that he felt he didn't have a way to answer the really big plays. Possibly I'll try to add back more naturalize cards as well as bringing back some more low-cost instant speed burn. Maybe it's time to bring in path sword and bolt?

Another player who have been playing UR in the drafts noted that he thinks red is kind of weak now? I think it has more to do with there not being enough of direction within red, something to anchor you in. Surprisingly he also thought ash zealot was underperforming?

I was thinking of running some of these cards (the noble is a 2nd one) as my red-tempo suite.


To-Do List:

• Give more incentive to run red, possibly by giving red a combo-esque feel
• Be on the look out if the small decks need more ways to interact with the big decks
• See if I should add more red burn
• Possibly break singleton on Hordeling Outburst to support red tokens better, purphoros in particular, as well as powering up the delver decks that have been popular. Since I cut some of the other undying-esque creatures and added more sweepers I think it can be safe to run some more army-in-a-cans.
• Look into maybe adding more reanimation spells? Or big black reanimation-creatures, right now it looks like people aren't really putting a dedicated reanimator deck together which I'd like to see have been done at least once.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Some quick dirty changes for next draft on tuesday

out


in

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I don't think you really need to push an aggro-combo deck in these types of cubes.

You already have a few protection effects, which those decks like for setting up the lethal turn, and act as conditional counters on removal. However, you would need to run some sort of combat buff, which may be too narrow for the rest of the cube. The strongest you could run would be vines of vastwood and ghor-clan rampager. If those seem too strong for you, than thats probably good reason to reconsider enabling this.

The number of "good enough" double striker guys at this powerlevel is pretty low, but I find you really don't need to push this deck too much. People are smart enough to figure out that silverblade paladin + vines of vastwood is a lot of damage. Speaking of which, at your power level, Silverblade paladin and arashin foremost are, I think, the only real candidates. Either one or both, backed up with a few flexible pump pieces, should be fine.

I like these theme best when you can tell which creatures are the aggro-combo pieces. It makes kills feel less random, and leads to that positioning game I mentioned earlier. It should be common sense that you shouldn't allow the W/G deck with a double striker on the field to hit you.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I'll probably just continue not running a double strike theme more than incidentally. The double strike stuff wasn't really anything I was looking to do. What do you think of the aggro tempo stuff in red?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I tend to really like treason effects as a tempo play, so I'm always drawn to run a bunch of those cards. Firefist striker looks great. You have a lot of burn already in the list, do you need two more effects?

I like the two outbursts, but it would be nice to have at least one more overrun effect in red to take advantage of them. They look really fun with hellrider.

Acidic slime and dread return are both classics.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I think the issue was that there wasn't really a lot of instant speed burn, so I'm trying out bumping up the number. Might just run 3x incinerate and see what it does, and run act of treason again. Good call on that. There's hellrider and hero of oxid ridge and some stuff in white, but maybe I should find room for at least one more overrun in red?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I would, but than I love making lots of goblin tokens and just smashing face.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Now we're thinking with portals

 

[safra]

I actually really like Hero of Oxid Ridge for wide red four-drop over Hellrider, it's a really solid roleplayer that isn't as curve-warping (and it makes more 40s than a frat house with a molecular printer)

Kessig Cagebreakers for Acidic Slime seems tenuous, why not find room for both? they're just both sweet magic cards with lots of play to them (esp. the more artifact and enchantment dudes you run!)

in the same way that Fencing Ace isn't quite good enough, Viashino Slaughtermaster has basically been a home run - the ability is real, even just threatened.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I actually really like Hero of Oxid Ridge for wide red four-drop over Hellrider, it's a really solid roleplayer that isn't as curve-warping (and it makes more 40s than a frat house with a molecular printer)

Kessig Cagebreakers for Acidic Slime seems tenuous, why not find room for both? they're just both sweet magic cards with lots of play to them (esp. the more artifact and enchantment dudes you run!)

in the same way that Fencing Ace isn't quite good enough, Viashino Slaughtermaster has basically been a home run - the ability is real, even just threatened.

I feel the same way. I kinda wish I liked vivid lands more, (Man if they ETB untapped) because whenever I had slaughtermaster activated off a birds or city of brass I felt all warm and fuzzy inside.
Maybe red just has more room for a goblin piker?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I guess what makes slaughtermaster deliver is that, given good fixing, it enables itself. It's also one of those "soft tricolor" cards that I actually think are kinda neat, when you want to skew things a little color-pairing wise.

I'm going to after only a few drafts go ahead and go on a little midrange purge, because I'd rather start from this end and slowly add back the good-stuff, than try to give people more incentive to go aggro or pure control when midrange is kind of oppressive.

Pod is really good, but also a favorite, so I'm going to see if toning down on the instant speed unconditional-ish removal, cheap wraths and ETB midrange blockers will help other more synergistic decks breath a little. The way I see it right now is that the good fixing and value packed creatures kind of took over, so there werent ever really any definition to the decks (except UR spells which actually showed up all 3 times we've drafted so far). I want there to be more of a theme to the decks we draft, and there being a punishment for playing durdly multicolor decks. Hopefully there not being as much of a cop out with cards like Thragtusk and Finks, you will have to commit more to the board. This is going to be an experiment, but it's nice to be able to probe with a pretty coarse scope. I'm also trying out some more narrow cards that reward drafting around a theme. Some cuts are also just because they weren't being picked. Tons of cards have been proxies, and since I'm toning down the power level a nudge I'm probably opening up for running more "bad" cards that I just fancy and that promote a certain vibe to the cube. Proxies are fine, but like breaking singleton, should be done with purpose and in moderation.

Out (Young Pyromancer and Augur of Bolas are now singleton)


In


things I hope become more supported:

• synergistic decks in general
• dredge style decks
• reanimator (whos components I think gets sucked up by midrange as value spells)
• pox aggro (with more cards that like to die, but that doesn't give value just by dying)
• a nudge to the human deck

 

[Modin]

Why him? Why did he have to go?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Those were only the doublettes! I am running them as singletons for the moment, partly because I was running them as proxies but also because I think the decks they support will come together even with them as singletons

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

The two skaabs I would probably not run. Ruinator can be pretty hard to get going in even more focused formats, and I doubt there is a large demand for a 1/4 3 mana body in most decks. A second thought scour would probably be a better card to run, though I am not sure there is much demand for self-mill. How do you imagine the dredge decks playing? As another midrange strategy, they will have to have something special to them to compete with the other midrange decks.

One thing that you might want to do is go over the list and tighten the powerband. When you have a broad power band it rewards people for just running decks of the best cards, and ignoring strategy. This can be especially pronounced with excellent fixing. The problem can be even worse if you are drafting less than 8, because you can get strange distributions of cards that further reward power max drafting.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Probably the skaabs are too bad, hm. The idea behind the dredging was to feed kessig cagebreakers, splinterfright and nemesis of mortals while also supporting the reanimator strategies, that I think might not have come together because the ways to get fatties into the yard are sparse.

I don't quite get the powerband concept? Is it like the ease for drafters to get powerful decks by picking cards from a lot of different strategical axis? It sounds like the good-stuff midrange problem.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Having a closer power band means your drafters spend less time drafting and building decks that are just a collection of format crushing bombs, while ignoring the rest of your cube.

People are drawn towards powerful cards, and some people (a lot) will approach cube draft by just taking the most powerful card in each pack. This results in decks that are nothing; that are not implimenting any specific strategy, that are just playing the most powerful cards available to them, and hope thats enough. There is no counter strategy to it, because there never was a strategy in the first place, beyond just playing powerful cards.

In cube, these are the soulless midrange decks that ruin otherwise excellent formats.

Now, lets apply this to your proposed changes. Your players have complained about wanting more archetype diversity, so you reasonable respond by adding several synergistic, but lower power cards in response to their request: kessig cagebreakers, splinterfright, and nemesis of mortals. You sit back waiting to reap the rewards of your hard labor, until, to your horror, you realize that no one has drafted these cards, and instead dumb green decks are bashing heads again. What happened you ask?

Well, you are still running cards like craterhoof behemoth, avenger of zendikar, wolfir silverheart, and polukranos, world eater in the same format as nemesis of mortal. Nemesis of mortal requires a lot of work to get going, unlike, say, wolfir silverheart, which just need to be cast, and is grossly better anyways. There are only two possible outcomes here: nemisis wheels into oblivion, or a player picks nemisis, and discovers the hard way that the far more efficent wolfir silverheart was the direction they should have gone in.

Both of these decks are midrange, but one is at a higher end of the powerband, to the point where the competiting strategy isn't valid.

If you are doing a sub 8-man draft with a 360, parts of your cube will be left out, which accentuates the problem. Wolfir, because it is an objectively powerful card, will always be good regardless of the distribution of cards that shows up in the draft. Nemesis of mortal, on the other hand, needs certain cards, and if they don't show up, its terrible (or its still terrible, because cards like wolfir are so much better). Because the cube as a whole, isn't built to support graveyard interactions, nemisis is super sensative to what else shows up in the draft, while wolfir dosen't care making it objectively the better pick, roughly 100% of the time.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

So in summary, the wisdom I should take from this (nice write up grillo!) is if I want more synergy oriented drafts I need to define the archetypes and find ways to support them while also making the choice of drafting one of those decks the right one, by flattening power level and making sure strong decks are more than the sum of its parts? I guess my latest in-out was a naive approach to this but that is what these forums are for, right!

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

That sounds pretty good. Remember that while you may be shifting away from power max design, your drafters will still be power max drafters. Looking at your changes through that perspective, can help give you an idea if your changes will stick.

 

[Eric Chan]

Not to put you on the spot here, Grillo, but do you have any interest in writing articles on cube and/or game design? Your post above is a fantastic summary of why the "good stuff" problem exists in cubes the world over, whether they're of the riptide variety or not, and I feel like it won't get enough press nested deep in a thread devoted to discussing Rasmus's cube. This is the kind of thing that could easily be a standalone post or article.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

So I got a suggestion to just revamp the cube completely and declaw control, to give players breathing room while plying thematic aggro decks. I'm essentially forcing out a aggro 3-0 deck, so that I can re add stuff like finks and Thragtusk and Toxic Deluge. My aggro suite is also going to be pretty blunt, so that I can really display the ideas behind each proactive aggressive style for my players to explore.

 

[Laz]

That is a lot of one-drops. I have had a lot of success doubling up on the Hybrid one-drops (Dryad Militant, Figure of Destiny and Rakdos Cackler). I find it works well since the number of people who are playing aggro (and therefore actually want to take 2-power one-drops) at the table tends to be low enough that it is better served by having more playable 1-drops while not diluting the draft for the non-aggro players too much.

That array of 1-drops makes it look like you are supporting a +1/+1 counter theme a lot more than you are. There might be some room for something like Bramblewood Paragon or perhaps a stronger counter-lord to accompany them.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I'm more moving numbers around, since this doesn't really change the number of one drops just changes what one drops I'm running. I like the idea of doubling up on some hybrid color beaters though. The question I'm trying to answer right now is what does proactive decks do in this cube and when I know that I'll go and look for things the reactive decks do.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

This is a good first step, and I think you will learn a lot, though your games might suffer somewhat in the process. The ultimately problem that aggro has i.m.o is that its usually designed in a way which makes it much less interesting than midrange or control. The latter two deck types have a plethora of sweet cards to choose from, while aggro is stuck beating in with boring 2/1s.

What will be really interesting will be to see how many people actually bite on the new aggro decks, or if they will stubbornly stick to drafting the midrange/control decks.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Yeah, I'll try to be wary of that. I'm thinking that by making these 3-offs that showcase what the color partially cares about, drafting a "sweet deck" should naturally lean you towards also being interested in the one drops. My hypothesis is that if for instance black does a bunch of sweet stuff by sacrificing its own creatures, a drafter should see bloodsoaked as an additional way to abuse saccing. I'm thinking I can probably borrow ideas from this thread if they feel like hey fit.

Another thing I am going to try having an eye on is how I can push a color pair by seeing how their one drops interact, like how gather the townsfolk interacts both with a UW "champion/delver tempo" deck and a WB "champion/bloodsoaked humans dying". UG has been a color pair I haven't really had an idea what to do with, but if I just go a semi-boring route and make it UG "experiment/cloudfin evolve" that makes it more mechanically concrete in a way I can push it consciously.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I like the focus tripling up on the "quintessential" one drop of each other. The depth in one drops is generally poor and beyond the dumb beef they usually aren't very good at providing redundancy. Tripling up on the focus-defining one drops gives both the redundancy and the direction that helps these decks come together and be interesting.

Are you sure you want triple both raptors and delvers?