Sainth's Cubes

Hi, everyone.

Here's my primary cube: Sainth's 540.

I stick to modern card frames, and I break singleton when I feel like it. It is higher-powered than many riptide-style cubes, but I don't like brokenly-powered stuff.

When I can get four people together (not often enough), we mostly glimpse draft. I also keep a slimmer list handy that I use for two-person glimpse or two-person four-color grid draft.




Edit: cleaned up my introduction.
 
Hey there! Welcome to the forum! I hope to see you posting about more often :D

In regards to your questions about your 540, here are my thoughts.

Reanimator: Given how powerful your cube is, this seems like it needs a significant push, in my opinion, especially given the size of the cube.
- I think some of your enablers are probably too slow. Forbidden Alchemy is a pet card of mine that never did enough back when my cube was of a similar power level as yours; if it proves underplayed (or not very useful), cut it promptly and don't look back! There's better enablers.
- Speaking of, Faithless Looting is a fantastic enabler for reanimator and is a fine draw smoother in other decks. I really enjoy it and have ran two copies many times, much to my drafter's delight.
- Victimize never worked here, and I think it just barely passes muster in much lower-powered environs.
- I'd like to see Animate Dead, Necromancy, Life // Death, Exhume, and/or Unearth in this list if you're serious about supporting reanimator. I understand reservations about Reanimate itself (it's pretty powerful), but the rest of these seem very reasonable to me. Torrent of Souls is a fine option if you want to keep reanimator as a strictly "value" strategy, especially if you end up running Pyromancer's Goggles.
- The lack of Entomb and Buried Alive make reanimator a lot harder to pull off. If you increase the density of reanimator spells, perhaps double up on Bloodghast (a fine choice imho), and/or add in Phyrexian Reclamation, both cards become a very reasonable choice, and, better still, they're fairly narrow, and will typically make it to the decks that want to play them without feeling poisonous (see this thread for more discussion on narrow cards, and my reply on narrow supporters vs narrow enablers and why you should run them). Entomb is an extremely effective tutor for a lot of different plays, and is criminally undervalued. It helps reanimator, gets you things to flash back, and can be a slightly overpriced tutor effect when combined with the likes of Eternal Witness, Snapcaster, and their many friends.

Spells-Matter: Overall looks pretty good, though the size of the cube makes it a lot shakier. Some suggestions...
- Seeker of the Way is a phenomenal card. It's quite powerful, so doubling up may seem a bit scary, but I think it's well-worth it if you want to support the deck at this size.
- The absence of Jhessian Thief is quite notable, because it's proven itself to be quite a valuable role-player over here. I'd strongly recommend including it.
- Double Young Pyromancer seems pretty reasonable in a cube of this size.
- Guttersnipe is a very powerful incentive towards the Spells-Matter deck, and lots of fun trying to use as a centerpiece.

I hope this helps!
 

Aoret

Developer
I tripled up on Delver of Secrets, doubled up on Kiln Fiend and Abbot of Keral Keep, and included several bounce spells and red token making spells.

Welcome!

In my experience, Kiln Fiend is nowhere close to the power level of the rest of these cards. You're correct in your assessment that token making spells are pretty important.

One potentially useful exercise in trying to make this type of deck work is to build an idealized version out of your cube list, and run it against a few other real draft decks, see how it plays. In trying to make this archetype work I ended up losing with it for something like four of five drafts in a row until I finally got it powerful enough to be competitive.
 
Welcome! I am going to have to agree with Raveborn on needing some push for reanimator. I tried forcing it just now... Didn't work unfortunately. Ended up in a sort of Pod/Value deck, but I saw very little of the support I wanted for a reanimator package.

-Double up on Satyr wayfinder? Add something like Hermit Druid?
-I could only find about as many reanimator spells as I run at 415. That's 3/4 the density, and reanimator is a minor thing in my cube. My favorite spell has got to be unburial rites. Such a cool, well designed card.
-(A lot of what Raveborn said).

Side note: double+ up on birthing pod? It looks like it could be a wicked sweet ~3 card theme in your list.
 
For spells matter, these came off the top of my head as options to try:

Jeskai Ascendancy (overlap with token strats)
Narset Transcendant
Gitaxian Probe
Thought Scour
Chasm Skulker (tangentially related to spells matter)
Jori En, Ruin Diver

And if you wanted to paint with the green and black colors of the wind to enable Grixis spells matter and/or Temur spells matter:

Forbidden Alchemy (overlap w/ reanimator)
Painful Truths
Cabal Therapy (+ YP = tru luv)
Bituminous Blast (underplayed imo)

Mutagenic Growth (overlap w/double strike themes)
Vines of Vastwood (overlap w/double strike themes)
Shardless Agent
Bloodbraid Elf
 
Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone. Regarding the reanimator archetype, I'm definitely aiming a bit more towards value reanimator than turn two combo. I've certainly not enjoyed facing down turn two Iona on the MTGO cube. That being said, I'll see how adding a couple stronger spells like Exhume and Life / Death goes.

Here are two attempts I've made to force the archetype on cube tutor, which looked reasonable to me in theory, though I haven't had the chance to try it in practice yet (Getting a consistent draft group together has gone less well then I had hoped):

- The absence of Jhessian Thief is quite notable, because it's proven itself to be quite a valuable role-player over here. I'd strongly recommend including it.

I'll definitely give Jhessian Thief a try. Does anyone else have any experience with it? I haven't seen it discussed before.
 
I'll definitely give Jhessian Thief a try. Does anyone else have any experience with it? I haven't seen it discussed before.

I'll take a stab and say that Raveborn has had some experience with it :p. I also have experience with it, and love it. I also like Tandem lookout in a similar role.

A couple of other things:
-Rune Snags can end up being kinda a trap for drafters if things don't come together correctly. People have moved to other options here, like doubling up on some of the other 2cc counters you have.
-adding brainstorms may help your spells matter.
 
I did a couple test drafts with your 540 list.
I think one of the reasons why spells matter doesn't shine in your list is that the power level is so high, you always have something better to do. Especially in Jeskai colours, which are the prowess colours, you have amazing removal, some of the best PWs available and creatures that will crush your opponent without having to cast a bunch of spells in order to make them relevant. So, why bother?

Maybe I'm just not used to having this much goodness, I don't know.
 
Thanks for the feedback so far. I've been obsessively updating my lists and like where things stand now, at least on paper.

Main recent updates:
  • Giving multiple Birthing Pods a go. I know it's old news around here, but I'm looking forward to trying it out.
  • Strengthening the Reanimator archetype. It's intended to be more of a turn four than a turn two deal in my cube, either in a UB control or BG value scenario.
  • Tuning Spells-matter. I cut the borderline prowess guys and went up to four Delver of Secrets, two Young Pyromancer, two Abbot of Keral Keep, and two Seeker of the Way. I also upped the number of cantrips and squeezed in a few more white instants, though we'll have to see if they're worth playing.
  • I trimmed down the number of aggro one-drops slightly. In my enthusiasm for low-curve and aggro support, I think I got carried away.
  • I'm also running an experimental minor theme involving:
    No idea how it'll turn out, but I'm looking forward to trying it out.
I should be getting a chance to draft this weekend, so we'll see what works.
 
I love the UW thing you're doing! The other thing you can do from that package is incorporate some ways to spread/proliferate +1 counters.
 
Got a couple drafts in this weekend. We did a four-player glimpse draft and then a three-player glimpse draft. It was a blast and the decks that came out of it were all very fun and very powerful. The overall power level made me reconsider my previous banning of Hero of Bladehold and Grave Titan, which actually seem in line with everything else that's going on. So I'm going to give them another go, as well as Brimaz, who I'm definitely keeping an eye on. Hero especially seems important for white-based aggro, since that archetype doesn't have the reach of red or black. Multiple Rune Snags worked fine, but I think I'll head back to a selection of conditional counterspells for now.

I opened a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet at the prerelease and jammed that right in. I've also pre-ordered the following from Oath of the Gatewatch:
I also wanted Goblin Dark-Dwellers but it was out of stock, and Chandra, Flamecaller, but I'm going to hope that comes down a bit in price first.

I've also ordered Griselbrand and Sheoldred, Whispering One to give reanimator some more legitimate payoff options.
 
I picked up a Balance with my other EMA purchases since it was relatively cheap. I'm guessing my cube actively does not want it though. Can anyone confirm?
 
Initial EMN planned includes. I'll figure out cuts later.

Planning on running:
Selfless Spirit
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Curious Homunculus
Wharf Infiltrator
Collective Defiance
Hanweir Garrison
Kessig Prowler
Spell Queller

Probably running:
Collective Effort
Unsubstantiate
Cryptbreaker
Noose Constrictor

Really hoping to find room for:
Niblis of Frost
Docent of Perfection
Bedlam Reveler
Hanweir Battlements (I do push a Fires archetype. If I can't find a cut, I will consider offering as a package deal with the Garrison)

Considering, but don't anticipate running:
Blessed Alliance
Fortune's Favor
Imprisoned in the Moon (I think this is a bigger color-pie bend than I'm cool with)
Dark Salvation
Collective Brutality
Incendiary Flow

Too expensive now, but maybe later:
Gisela, the Broken Blade
Liliana, the Last Hope
Emrakul, the Promised End- I don't run any Eldrazi right now, but I think this hits a nice spot for both reanimator and big ramp strategies and would like to try it out when it comes down in price.

25 is a huge number of cards to be looking at. I love how both SOI and EMN gave a lot of support to spells-matter archetypes. Most of the cards are at the retail draft power level, but several are at least up for consideration in my cube. I think Niblis of Frost and Docent of Perfection look really cool but I may struggle to find a cut. Bedlam Reveler looks to have a ton of potential, but will definitely require some testing to see if the cost is consistently low enough to perform. Also, I haven't really looked much at the emerge creatures and will be curious to see if they work well for anyone else.
 
First thoughts on Kaladesh:

White:
Aerial Responder - I like it, but probably won't find a spot for a non-human 3-drop.
Angel of Invention - Going in for sure. I push going wide and anthems pretty hard in my white section, and this does both.
Cataclysmic Gearhulk - Probably not making room for it.
Fumigate - I like this one a lot. For white wraths I'm currently running Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, and Hallowed Burial. The question is just whether life gain plays better than Burial, which is there for all the recursive stuff. Going up to four white sweepers isn't out of the question either.

Blue:
Insidious Will - This one's pretty cool, but I doubt I can find a cut.
Metallurgic Summonings - I love supporting the spells deck. This might be a little slow though.
Torrential Gearhulk - Worth considering.

Black:
Noxious Gearhulk - I'm running three black sixes already, so probably not going to find room for this one. I do like that they have menace available for the large black creature though.
Scrapheap Scrounger - I'll run this.

Red:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Clearly strong, but I really like my red planeswalker section where it is. Maybe once it's affordable.
Bomat Courier - I want this to be good, but it's probably not, right?

Green:
Nissa, Vital Force - I still like Nissa, Worldwaker, so I don't think I need it. Once it's cheap, I might grab it for a change of pace.
Verdurous Gearhulk - Definitely strong, but I probably won't be running it.

Multi:
Cloudblazer and Dovin Baan - I would play them in many blue-white decks, but they aren't close to top four in the guild for me.
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter - I'll probably give this a try over Coiling Oracle.

Colorless:
Filigree Familiar - I'll try this out if I can find a spot.
Fleetwheel Cruiser - Seems good. Strange how distinctly red both this and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship are. I will try them both.
Smuggler's Copter - I will also try this.

Lands:
Inspiring Vantage - Going in for Clifftop Retreat. I've been waiting for this one for a while.
Concealed Courtyard - Going in for Temple of Silence.
Blooming Marsh - Might go in for Temple of Malady.
Botanical Sanctum and Spirebluff Canal - Probably not going in at the moment.

Getting another cycle of enemy-paired lands is nice. I'm now considering dropping the ABU dual proxies I'm running since I can actually fill out my land sections with lands that aren't terrible. One more cycle of enemy lands (either Battle or Shadow) and I probably will.

This set doesn't have the crazy amount of cube cards for me that some of the recent sets have, which is fine with me. It's filling a couple specific holes I was hoping to get filled, and looks like a really interesting limited format. Vehicles are cool and I'm trying a few out. I'm not messing around with energy in my cube, but again, I think it looks awesome for regular draft.
 
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