Card/Deck [SCD] Dark Depths

[Sean McClane]

History leading to this SCD
So as of the last few drafts, my playgroup has somewhat complained about the Pestermite/Deciever Exarch/Zealous Conscripts with Splinter-Twin/Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combo, saying while it is easy to disrupt, it just wins. They are starting to claim it is almost too good, while I am claiming it really depends on the player playing this deck, timing and skill level. But that is for another time

Reason for this SCD
At this point I wanted to include another combo in the cube, and wanted one that has a little more work/effort to put into making it happen. Thinking about combos, (I must note here my cube is modern, but discussion of this card in any cube format is the point of this thread), I remembered a modern card that was banned in the format, and starting thinking could be a thing...

DARK DEPTHS
Legendary Snow Land
Dark Depths enters the battlefield with ten ice counters on it.
: Remove an ice counter from Dark Depths.
When Dark Depths has no ice counters on it, sacrifice it. If you do, put a legendary 20/20 black Avatar creature token with flying and indestructible named Marit Lage onto the battlefield

The well known combo is this with Vampire Hexmage.

So I leave the rest to us to discuss
Other cards that work well with DD
Experience with DD
Cards to play against DD

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Hex Parasite is another card that can speed up Marit Lage, cutting the requisite mana from 30 to 10. However, this is very easy to interrupt. A 10 mana sink to get a huge dude isn't bad, though. Ludevic's Test Subject is a solid dude. Marit Lage is better, but it doesn't serve as an op wall of wood while you wait. Also a land drop that doesn't make mana is probably more painful then a two drop.

On a different note, I don't find "automatically win the game" to be a particularly interesting reward for getting two cards out even if those cards are sub-par, so I'm on your playgroup's side of the argument.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Twin is interesting in Constructed because every deck has access to a lot of cheap removal, which means that timing and knowing how to play around various cards is important. In Cube that isn't really the case, so I could see it being too oppressive.

The go-to card with Dark Depths nowadays is Thespian Stage.

 

[CML]

I think the way to build the "infinity faeries" combo in Cube (like all combos in Cube) is to not make the cards bad -- as then we'll have a poison-principle half-assed-storm-theme-in-Modo-cube conundrum -- but to make them good. For example! You will not end up with a Kiki-Jiki or a Restoration Angel if you pass it, but maybe you'll wheel Twin and Pestermite because, lol Twin and Pestermite.

Dark Depths is skewed very much towards the "useless piece of garbage unless I happen to have Thespian's Stage and/or Hexmage," which are too fairly awful cards on their own (yes, Hexmage is awful, interesting at 1B maybe)

Dom -- why shouldn't Cube have (lots of) cheap removal?

 

[Dom Harvey]

Not saying it shouldn't, just that it's hard to have a high enough density of it to make Twin a risky proposition unless you flood your Cube with cheap removal to the extent that there's too much.

 

[CML]

I think winning on the spot is a fair enough reward for putting that combo together. It's not like nothing's happening until they goldfish you

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think winning on the spot is a fair enough reward for putting that combo together. It's not like nothing's happening until they goldfish you

Yeah, but... it's not like you have to be doing nothing at the same time either.

 

[CML]

to that end: a very specific kind of nothing
http://www.channelfireball.com/home/legacy-weapon-a-fresh-take-on-modern/