I was able to get an actual draft and best-of-five set in with the new "head up" cube. It was a fun experience, and being able to trash talk an old friend during the grid draft was almost as fun as attacking, but I'm getting off track.
(Aside)
The cube was put together with cards sitting around the office. Most of them are things that have cycled out of my main cube in its peasant days, or cards given to me by friends who wanted them tried out in the cube. I don't expect it to always remain a budget cube, but I do like the idea of having as much fun as possible for no extra monetary investment.
(End aside)
My friend Henry dropped by the office this afternoon to help me test drive the cube. I gave him a rough idea of what I was hoping for the list, and I rambled about the kinds of themes I hoped were present as he glanced over the list. We shuffled up the cube, set out 16 packs of nine cards, and rolled 2d10 for pick order. I won and elected to pick first.
Pack one:
I took the top row after staring at
Crater Hellion for 30 seconds. I like to try to force aggro decks in new environments. It's my opinion that format health is pretty closely related to how effective it is to be attacking with 2/2 dudes. Henry takes the bottom row pretty quickly. He said something to the effect of, "I'm either control or just bombs."
Pack two:
Henry got to select first in pack two. He took the left column pretty quickly and set
Rolling Thunder next to the Hellion in his pile. After some thought, I took the middle column. I wanted to push aggro, and I wasn't about to pass up a cantrip, mana cheating, and what could be a great enchantment.
Pack three:
I take the left column to stay in red based aggro. Henry take the center column and sticks to bombs and more reactive cards.
Pack four:
Henry selects the left column. I take the right column to pick up the landfall dude and fixing.
Pack five:
I take the center row here, thinking that I am picking up ramp and a couple neat enchantments. None of these cards make it into my deck. Henry takes the top row.
Pack six:
Henry, like most of my old MtG friends, has an uncomfortable fondness for
Flametongue Kavu and takes the top row. I scoop up the two 3cc dudes in the right column.
Pack seven:
I want to take
Cathartic Reunion but am worried that I don't have removal and scoop up the bottom row. Henry takes the top row here, which I disagreed with. I think he needs the center column here as
Mist Raven should be pretty solid against me.
Pack eight:
Henry grabs the blue cards on the bottom row and I take
Harmonize and
Treetop Village before he can change his mind. I think he needs to grab a column and keep one of the cards from me, maybe just straight up hate draft the top row.
Pack nine:
I grab the center row for the lands. Henry grabs the column with the signet.
Pack ten:
Henry takes the left column. There's not much here for me, so I grab the center column.
Pack eleven:
I want the
Hooting Mandrills and decide on the top row over the left column. I thought the trap would be great, but I never had opportunity to use it, as I never had a meaningful artifact or enchantment get destroyed. The
Ingot Chewer would have been a better card. Henry grabs the bottom row, though I don't know if he played any of them.
Pack twelve:
Henry takes the center column here, though I feel like the top row may have been better for him. I scoop up the left column for the two green tricks.
Pack thirteen:
I originally wanted the bottom row, but talked myself into the right column. I wanted the removal spell, and
Goblin Rally was fantastic in the one game I drew it. Henry grabs the left column for the fatty, but I feel like the two blue spells in the center column are better for him.
Pack fourteen:
Henry takes the center column here, though again I disagree. I think he should grab
Phantom Monster. I get the right column to add another 2cc dude to my team. I wonder aloud if the early pressure is enough or if I will just lose if we get to turn six.
Pack fifteen:
I like all the cards on the top row and take them. Henry grabs the center row for the lands, but I feel like getting the center column was better. Then again, I'm a sucker for
Exclude.
Pack sixteen:
Henry uses his final pick to get the top row. I wish he would have given me the
Overrun but that's just greedy. I grab the bottom row for the land. Neither of the other cards make my list, with
Undying Rage being the last cut to get me to 40.
Henry ended up in Blue / Red midrange-control thing. He splashed green for
Vengeful Rebirth. I played a fairly aggressive Red / Green list with lots of landfall triggers and a few combat tricks. The surprise MVP for me was
Stormrider Rig. It was so much better than I thought, to the point that I am going to keep an eye on it.
We played a best 3-of-5 set. I won the die roll and elected to play in game one. Henry seems really pleased with his starting seven, but that smile fades when his turn two
Simic Signet meets the business end of my turn three
Reclamation Sage. He never gets back to board parity and a parade of creatures keeps him on the back foot until it's over. He is on the play in game two, and I mulligan to six but keep a good hand. I briefly considered keeping my seven land hand of
Kird Ape,
Ancient Ziggurat, and a couple 2cc dudes. I decided to have some respect for myself and do the sensible thing. Like I said, the six were good and we settled into a fun game. Henry and I traded the life lead for several turns. He wraths with
Crater Hellion and I'm able to bounce back after passing the turn after it hits. He has to decide to pay echo with all of his lands against my empty board or let it go and untap. He decides to pay echo and pass. I had the
Ground Assault to kill it. We play a few more turns until he has a couple prowess guys against my unleashed
Splatter Thug and random 2/2 landfall guy wearing the Rig. Henry pauses to do some math and starts looking through his graveyard. He asks my life total and I tell him it's one more than nine. He says, "yeah, I can do nine." He ends up casting
Vengeful Rebirth to get back a counterspell and uses the damage to kill my landfall guy. I untap, draw
Ghor-Clan Rampager and swing. After he blocks, I show him the combat trick and we go to game three. Game three was back and forth until I resolved
Retreat to Kazandu. The +1/+1 triggers are too much. Henry uses a few removal spells and blocks well, but the constant pumping of my otherwise small creatures is too much. My new friend
Goblin Rally shows up with him at 8 life and he can't get enough blockers or draw a sweeper.
So the RG aggro deck won 3-0 against the URg control list, though I think Henry left a few cards sitting in the box instead of in his list. We talked about general impressions after the games and he thinks that I need to keep an eye on
Retreat to Kazandu. I looked back over the list and there aren't a lot of ways to handle it. Should I look into something like
Nevinyrral's Disk or
Steel Hellkite to give decks ways to handle enchantments?
It was a fun experience, and I look forward to getting a few more drafts in this week to get more data. I'm not sure if going down the path of doubling up on the cards I want to define the format is correct. I have only broken singleton for
Thrummingbird because I like the idea of proliferating +1/+1 counters. I jammed a small mill-esque package in, but I don't think there is enough there to force anything meaningful. Also wondering about
Pulse of Murasa as life gain and graveyard interaction.
Super excited about this pile of cards. Hope to update again soon.
