Shamim's Cube

[shamizy]

So my last draft ended up devolving in 2HG swiss in later rounds, so we didn't even get through 3 rounds, but in the few one-on-one games that were played I've got a few quick hits to report on:

• Dromoka's Command is fantastic. I drafted a GW deck splashing black and it was great every time I had a board. The best play I had all night was evoking a Shriekmaw, evoke trigger on stack, cast the command, fight a creature and make them sac their O-Ring to free up my 6/6 Knight of the Reliquary. Kill two creatures and free a big beater? Sweet.
• Dragonlord Silumgar was a hit for the guy that was playing it. Had a lot of fun stealing the other guys creatures. He was pretty much Grixis Control and controlled the board for the most part by burning and removing dudes before letting something resolve and then stealing it with Silumgar. Stealing a Surrak, the Hunt Caller and then beating the opponent to death was pretty gross.
• Myth Realized was a part of a very solid Jeskai spellslinger deck that was also headlined by Dragonlord Ojutai. Ojutai was very powerful, but by no means impossible to deal with. The conditional hexproof was perfectly fair. Myth Realized was awesome though, much better than I thought it would be. It just gradually became bigger and turned every relevant instant/sorcery drawn off Ojutai into one more potential point of damage. Late game it turned into a really solid mana sink. It's a keeper.
• Ojutai's Command was pretty fun and one of my drafters lived the dream against an RW aggro deck. Cast the command, got back Lone Missionary and gained 4 life, had the gain 4 life mode on the command go off, blocked an x/2 attacker. It was amazing, basically undid 3 turns worth of damage.

 

[spicewitch]

I love the art for Ojutai's. And Myth. Almost all of the non-Steve Argyle jeskai art, really.

Good to hear about Dromoka's. Fight is my absolute favorite kind of removal, so I'm always in the market for more and better Fight effects.

 

[Laz]

I love the art for Ojutai's. And Myth. Almost all of the non-Steve Argyle jeskai art, really.

Well, if you want me to ruin that for you...

Spoiler

The guy at the front is taking a group shot using a selfie stick.

Once seen, cannot be unseen.

 

[shamizy]

Dromoka's Command is very interesting in that the modes are live against almost every kind of deck in Cube, aside from draw-go control. With the number of enchantments/enchantment creatures I run, that mode is relevant more often than you'd think. I've also been looking for good combat tricks/fight cards and it fit the bill.

 

[shamizy]

Whoa it's been about 3 months since I last updated/posted in here. A couple of quick non-Origins updates though:

• Acquired a copy of Noble Hierarch earlier today, will be adding into the Cube later tonight. Pretty stoked to have a dork to bring some sweet Bant fixing, serve as a target for Ranger of Eos, and bring along relevant Exalted trigger for combat.
• Cut Dread Return b/c no one ever really used it, replaced it with Exhume and it's already seen more play. I also like the sub-game of thinking of when the best time to actually play it is. Like, you definitely don't want them to return something of value. Also enables that nutty T1 Faithless Looting, T2 Exhume, T3 ???, T4 Profit.
• Dragonlord Ojutai ended up being a bit too oppressive tbh. Like, if you ever untap it with a counterspell in hand, a 5/4 flier is difficult to deal with. And then it draws them into even more relevant spells and clears the topdecks of chaff. Might try it again in the future if I can get better defensive roadblocks into the cube. Right now though? Sold my copy.
• Put in a Chrome Mox b/c I managed to trade for a copy, the fairest fast mana that I'd be willing to put into the cube. It put in good work in a Mono-Red aggro deck in our last draft, T1 Zurgo + Goblin Guide is pretty good.
• Took out two shitters in Frontier Siege and Unravel the Aether, put in two relevant and useful cards in Primal Command and Fauna Shaman. Shaman is sweet, enables a bunch of zany shenanigans in the cube (esp in a GB shell), and Primal Command is one of the few really relevant green sorceries that actually has some play to it.
• Last update was realizing that Impact Resonance is actually pretty ridiculous and should be cut. I only thought of it as a way for red to deal with bigger threats, but I never considered it being used the other way; a Giant creature just mowing down everything in its path. I didn't see it happen, but the realization that one semi-large flier + no blockers + this = one sided boardwipe was kind disheartening. I've gone back to a safer option in Roast, which does everything I'd want anyway. Well, on the floor at least.

From Origins, I've got a long list of cards that I'm looking to add and they include the following:



I think all three of the walkers here are pretty decent, Lily is the one that I'm most excited to play with because of all the low cmc shenanigans. Like, she could legitimately be at the forefront of a tiny army after coming down and flipping early in some black aggro deck. Ripping apart hands and reanimating dudes seems pretty decent. Jace is also pretty cool as a looter and crappier Snapcaster Mage. I like the idea of filling up the grave and hitting a wrath, flashing it back after flipping, then stabilizing the board. He's not going to win too many games for you, but he seems like great support for the kind of decks that would want his effects buying time to get to your win-con. Gideon goes without saying; he's the most amazing Savannah Lions yet.

Tragic Arrogance was one that I missed until I reread it and safra gushed over it in another thread. Definitely gonna give it a look now as another wrath variant.

Harbinger of Tides is my latest attempt at trying to make some UG deck work (now more possible with Hierarch!) as well as pushing to make Mono-Blue devotion possible. It still hasn't happened, but I have hope! Jhessian Thief is great because while scroll thief is usually decent but not good enough, prowess changes the entire equation. All of sudden it's not a dorky 1/3, but could turn into a 2/4 (maybe even 3/5 later) that can actually trade with early creatures AND might discourage blocks to allow for that sweet card draw. The best variant of this effect yet.

Graveblade Marauderseems pretty sweet; creates interesting scenarios with defensive decision making. Also I'm anxious to see someone swing in with it while an Oona's Prowler is on their side of the field and make the other guy sweat. Languish is another sweet board wipe in black to help push black based control further. I didn't really like Crux of Fate much because it was a turn too slow, but this seems just right. Delving out an early Tasigur and plopping this down (like they'll do in Standard for the next couple of months) seems like a good way to win. Priest of the Blood Rite was pretty bonkers for me in my 2HG on Sunday. Buying him back with Macabre Waltz was entirely too much value. I like the gamestates that arise from him being on the board; is it worth attacking into and/or killing the priest or just letting him stay there and drain the opponent for 2? If I ever see blink shenanigans get out of hand with him, then I'll definitely need to pull him, but for now he's a sweet inclusion.

Shoutout to Onderzeeboot for the Magmatic Insight math earlier today, convinced me even further to put a copy into the Cube. Abbot of Keral Keep is a great aggressive red two drop who is actually relevant in the late game. I had Ire Shaman in this same slot, but now that piece of crap can sit in the sideboard forever. I just don't like morphs all that much in a higher powered environment, too slow. Abbot though? Good on curve aggresively as a two, good later as a means of flipping a relevant burn spell or hitting a land drop. Also has Prowess, the best extra value mechanic we've ever seen. God I love Prowess, makes so many card sooooo much better. Finally, we have Chandra's parents who are pretty awesome. For 2RR we get 4 bodies and a Siege Gang for ANY artifact. That's insanely good. I can't wait to fling Perilous Myr and bolt people.

For Green I've only got Woodland Bellower currently (pulled a Nissa, though I'm using it in my Karametra Enchantress EDH for now) who seems like a pretty sweet card. Just a 6/5, but bringing a relevant friend could lead to some cool deckbuilding. Bringing along Eternal Witness to recur a card? Voice of Resurgence to say fuck you to blue? Knight of the Reliquary b/c two potential 6/6's for 4GG is good? It just opens up so many cool plays and isn't one of the more stupidly busted cards at the very top of green's curve.

The last two cards are Bounding Krasis and Sword of the Animist. Krasis slots in nicely in U/G as a relevant card for the archetype I want to push, and the flash + tap could be relevant in certain scenarios. Way more excited for the ramping sword though, and it'll help enable landfall shenanigans as a side effect as well. Could be relevant if we get some sweet spoils from BFZ in the Fall. It's a fair piece of equipment that won't warp the game too badly and will not create value until T3 at the earlier (off a one drop). Gives plenty of time for the opponent to find a way to deal with relevant threats early. I like that it also helps clear out land draws later in the game and helps you to draw more gas. Love this card.

 

[shamizy]

Me and a friend went one-on-one with these two lists we generated from Cubetutor to get a glimpse of the new Origins cards in action. Probably going to get an actual 8 man going sometime this weekend so I'll have better card impressions then. Both of these decks were pretty sweet:

Sultai Control

Bant Bellower

G1: Sultai wins roll and has a nice start with a T2 Hangarback Walker to hold the for for a bit, Bant comes in with a T1 Arbor Elf into T2 Pridemage. Swords to Plowshares on the Hangarback, swing with Pridemage. Pridemage gets exalted trigger, but Sultai flashes in a Bounding Krasis for the trade. Bant uses Dromoka's Command to pump the Pridemage + fight the Krasis. Sultai then tries to buy time by dropping a Kiora and +1 to bubble the Pridemage. Some other dork gets put onto the field from the Bant side, trying to power out a T4 Bellower and looking for Eternal Witness to get back the Swords. Sultai just plays a Mind Stone to try and set up for the later game. Bellower resolves, brings E-Wit, and gets back the Swords. Sultai comes up with Pestermite which is then used next turn to tap down Bellower + trade with E-Wit, Pridemage is bubbled by Kiora. Bant hits a lull by drawing lands, Sultai draws into Tamiyo, the Moon Sage to lock down Bellower, Kiora locking down Pridemage. Eventually Sultai -2 with Tamiyo to draw into Damnation, clear the board, then win with Profane Command + Pestermite + Dragonlord Silumgar in the late game. Pretty sweet match.

G2: This one was a bit tougher for Sultai with Bant having a nutty start with T1 Champion of the Parish, T2 Thalia, T3 Fabled Hero. Sultai was able to buy a little time early with a T2 Frost Walker to gum the board with a Tragic Slip in hand, but Thalia locked the Kiora in hand out until T5 at the earliest. Bant drew into Dromoka's Command to grow the Hero + target the Frost Walker with the fight ability, killing it. Sultai ends up Tragic Slipping the Hero to avoid 8 damage. Sultai draws into Hangarback Walker, hoping to stabilize, but Bant has the answer with a Swords into an Experiment One to keep pushing in damage. Sultai just puts a Lifebane Zombie on the ground and plays a land, hoping for Damnation on the next draw step. Doesn't matter though b/c a Vryn Wingmare comes down and forces a trade with the Experiment One, locking out Damnation from being cast for another two turns.

G3: Tight match with a lot of back and forth, lots of chip shots from one side to the other until Bant resolved a Woodland Bellower and brought along Knight of the Reliquary. Sultai followed up with Dragonlord Silumgar to steal it before having it eat a Valorous Stance the very next turn. The game came down to a sequence with a Revaillark E-Wit loop (just happened once) to stabilize life total for Bant before finishing off with a Mulldrifter that was Soulbonded with a Silverblade Paladin along with a Noble Hierarch on the board. Sultai did end up playing a Lifebane Zombie, Shriekmaw and Hangarback Walker on 5, but Bant used a Swords on its own E-Wit to survive an alpha strike with one life and come back to deal lethal off double exalted triggers from Hierarch + freshly drawn Pridemage. Nice close games.
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So Woodland Bellower is great, really fun card. Hangarback Walker ate many Swords, but would have stabilized the board and bought good time for the control deck if it had lived and grown bigger. I think it's pretty awesome how it scales throughout the game and plays with any counter shenanigans you have. Bounding Krasis was a fun flash attacker/blocker that helped to buy time when trying to be defensive and chipping in a few points of damage/forcing trades when necessary. Finally, a sweet Simic tempo card. Thalia into Thalia Horse is pretty backbreaking against control, that was a cool interaction to see happen. Holding off wraths + spot removal for a turn or two is soooooo damn good. Pretty happy with all of the new Origins cards that I saw in action, set was great for Cube.

 

[shamizy]

Ch-ch-changes

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I've made the jump to 420 so there are way more things going in than swapped out. I think I was the only person who ever bothered to try going Mono-black in any of the drafts we've had, so I've cut Erebos and Gary. I'm trying to strengthen two color lists so I've swapped in many card with double CC costs to push towards fewer colors. Additionally I've added some light nonbasic hate in Fulminator Mage and Wasteland (hoping to up this to 2 or 3 in the near future). I cut the 2nd Finks because it's too good to double up on and I picked up a Horizon Canopy at GP SD last weekend. A lot of the swaps were to put in more interesting cards within the given color, random adds were just sweet cards I wanted to play with in my 15 card increase.

 

[shamizy]

First 8-man cube draft in about two months or so with everyone back for the school year, had two sweet decks meet in the Finals. My friend ran a Mardu Control sort of build with tons of burn while I ran a B/W aggro deck that promptly got stomped all over the place with 1-for-1 removal. The lists:

Mardu Control

BW Humans feat. Athreos

I got stomped pretty hard, can't really match up against one-for-one removal early and that reach with burn. Just too good against my deck full of one-drops and 2 toughness creatures everywhere. My BW deck ran sweet the rest of the night though, Tangle Wire is an amazing card for Aggro, Braids applied a great amount of pressure, and Hordechief broke a game wide open during a board stall. A huge surprise for me was Athreos, God of Passage. He is the perfect card for a B/W aggro deck and helps apply continuous pressure throughout. It was especially gross when I curved Athreos into Braids, Cabal Minion b/c it was such a gross lock after Wastelanding a dual land. Assuming that you've already gotten a few hits in on your opponent, Athreos creates some real problems because they can't afford to just bolt themselves every turn to prevent you from recycling your attackers. He's amazing, this is the first time I've used him and I'm pretty sure he's here to stay for the long-term. Also works great with the Enlightened Tutor I stuck in here about a month back.

For the Mardu player, he loved the double Magma Jet and cited it as the card that surprised him the most. It's just so awesome in most of our environments and has so much utility to it. If you're looking for an interesting burn spell to double up on, pick Jet. It fits into every deck that runs red, is never a dead draw, and the Scry 2 is so relevant. Like we began our first match with him on the play jetting my first two plays of the game (Mom and Student of Warfare), fixing his draws for his next like 3 turns, and just overwhelming me with 1-for-1s all the while. It was so good.

We had a good number of interesting decks today: The two I listed, a Bant deck, UW, Grixis Control, Jund and two G/R decks. It mostly came down to matchups; after looking over most of the decks I think any one of them could have won today. Grixis control looked pretty great in particular, something that I would have drafted for sure. Just a bunch of tough matchups for it. And now some quick hits:

• Athreos is a beast in pushing B/W decks forward, gives them amazing reach in the later game by rebuying threats for free. Definitely run him.
• The 3 Wastelands I added were pretty successful today, perfect hate against greedy manabases. My Bant opponent was actually afraid to play into Wasteland when I had a Braids on the board. Helped cut him off double blue in another game iirc.
• Soulfire Grand Master was kickass in that Mardu Control list, holy shit so much burn. He never lived the dream with Blasphemous Act, but he did say that Soulfire gained him like 9 life in one game which is awesome.
• Vryn Wingmare + Silverblade Paladin was extremely gross and awesome at the same time. Straight stomping fools. Also kept a wrath at bay for a turn.
• Tragic Arrogance had a hilarious situation in one game where the Grixis player had stolen a Hangarback Walker with Vedalken Shackles. Bant player played Tragic Arrogance, made them saved the Walker (b/c it specifies controls, not owns), and just freed his Walker + routed opponents board mostly. It was great.
• I saw Ojutai's Command bring back a Lone Missionary EOT to stabilize life and then swing in for lethal the following turn. So good.
• One match of G/R versus Grixis had a funny turn with the Grixis player at 8 life, thought he was mostly safe, then G/R topdecks a Zurgo Bellstriker to dash in and then put a Rancor on it. Then it gets them both back at the EOT. A 4/4 trampler that dodges sorcery speed answers, not bad.
• Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows happened, it was pretty gross in the G/R mirror match as it picked off tiny guys before winning the long game with Raging Ravine.
• Keranos, God of Storms is pretty much the coolest win-con ever, he was pretty good in the Grixis control deck. Just drew a crazy amount of cards and every bolt aimed at a creature was so key in buying time. It was especially good alongside Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm. It's very difficult to remove, but it's a slow enough clock that I feel fine with keeping it in and giving U/R/x control decks a legitimate go-to win condition.

Likely to be cubing again sometime in the next two weeks, hopefully with some sweet adds from BFZ to test out.

 

[shamizy]

So I've gotten my hands on the following BFZ cards from this weekend:



First 3 in the main cube, last two in ULD. I'm hoping that we'll get 8 tomorrow for another draft and I'll try to report back on how these perform since I usually randomly seed new cards into the final 360 pool to potentially see them in action. Expulsion is cool, love that Venser style effect, and Noyan Dar seems like he could be interesting in some Jeskai styled build with lots of cheap instants and sorceries.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I added Brutal Expulsion and cut Jilt, just to try out. I'm curious if the additional mode (bounce spell) and the exile on death beats being able to clutch cast the spell at two mana though

 

[shamizy]

Bouncing a spell might be worth it, it's an additional tempo play in a UR tempo deck that seems pretty nice. Like, if you've been applying pressure to some durdly deck that was hoping to wrath away on T4, this seems like a nice way to just gettem. I'll be cutting out Izzet Charm to try it out, wanna see just how effective it actually is. I want it to be good, but I'm just not sure if the shock to a creature or player is enough unless you're using it aggressively.

 

[shamizy]

Wasn't there to actually view the draft firsthand but I lent the Cube to a couple of buddies to host a draft on campus. Got 8 people, saw some sweet builds, and came in later in the night and jammed a few games with decks left behind by people who had to head out.

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I have a Sidisi EDH deck and I know just how fun and cool it is to just spew out an army, but it's just so hard in Cube with such a small deck. It's very difficult to abuse without the right cards and I've only ever seen it in a Pod deck that had Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as a shuffle effect to reset graveyard. Cool card, maybe it'll find it's way back in someday. Brago was pretty slow but the Bant blink list would come together every now and then and it was pretty sweet. We'll see if Noyan Dar can relegate him to the binder. Izzet Charm was just never good enough in most decks and people found themselves siding it out quite frequently. Expulsion just seems more powerful and practical in use. Now for the new goodies:

• Lumbering Falls was excellent in a Bant Midrange shell and did great work alongside Treetop Village in just whittling down the life of an Esper control list. I think it's a definite keeper, the power level is right where I want it to be and it's a Manland that you just can't kill aside from combat damage.
• In that same Esper list apparently Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper made the cut as a spicy win-con in the late game. I don't know how good it was, but when I played against it with a Worldknit deck someone made, it wrecked me when we were in topdeck mode. Making every spell into a potential 3/3 haste creature was really really good. I can't wait to see it abused in a Jeskai shell in the near future.
• Brutal Expulsion was a card that one of my friends was excited to play with and also thinks it will be pretty solid, but sadly it was left in sideboards this time. I could definitely see it being used in the near future though, it's such a swing of momentum for a tempo deck to bounce a big guy and burn away a smaller blocker gumming the board.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Stupid Idea about Sidisi: Kozilek in the ULD? or do you figure Gaea's Blessing would be tech enough?

also I'm more excited about Nyan Cat, Roil Shaper once I remembered that you can awaken already awakened lands so you aren't limited on "tokens"

 

[shamizy]

Gaea's Blessing seems like good tech for a squadron sort of pick, but I don't really like squadroning cards in my cube since we have new people every now and then and it's already a lot to process. Like, last night we had around 5 people who just started playing Magic in the last 6 months and Cube was already information overload. Noyan Dar is sweet, I just wish he was like a 3/5 instead of a 4/4. It seems like a way better card to come in, gum up board, then you just spellsling to awaken and beatdown with makeshift 3/3's.

 

[shamizy]

My friends and I went for an impromptu midnight run to our LGS because we heard that they would have Fat Packs at MSRP. We get there with 7 people, they have 5 left, but storeowner was chill so he pulled up two more from his back stock he was saving for the next day and we each got one. I pretty much used up all my luck for the year by opening Foil Newlamog (my first mythic foil pull!) and a Temple Garden Expedition. Oh and Ruinous Path and Treeternal Witness for the Cube.

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Though it seems kinda dull, I'm actually pretty excited about a scalable Oblivion Ring. Any incidental planeswalker hate is great, and a removal spell that isn't just outclassed later in the game is just super sweet. 2WW for a single O-Ring is whatever, 4WW for double is sweet, and if you ever exile 3+ things you're just living the dream. I'm a big fan of this card, there are going to be moments where you hold back on exiling a single threat to maximize your exile targets the next turn and I like these sorts of interactions.

Exemplars was a cool card when it first came out, but I've honestly ever seen it in one draft and it was just a solid roleplayer, nothing amazing. He's often wheeled in drafts and I think it's time to boot him to the binder till I want test him out again. He's one of those creatures that I would have much rather had been something like a 3/5 to give more of a push towards defining itself as an archetypal card. As is, it's just sort of a middling card that is solid when you can maximize it. I'm always happy to see more planeswalker hate, especially at sorcery speed, so Ruinous Path was an easy inclusion. I think I'm slowly moving forward on the sorcery speed removal train, not quite on Team Volcanic Hammer yet though.

I'm pretty hyped for the green and blue retreats in particular, there are just so many shenanigans that can be done with our Riptide builds with fetches and whatnot. I've been looking for interesting non-ramp green enchantments for a while and I've also been looking to extend the lifegain theme some more without something in your face. This checks off both boxes. Yavimaya Elder is cool, but I like all of my current 3s way more.

Foe-Razer was just too pricey and with very little payoff. I never saw him in a deck. Treeternal Witness seems way better, will make the cut in almost every green deck that drafts it, is sweet in Birthing Pod decks, and it's just straight value. It's basically a card that will regrow one card, trade with something else, and then potentially regrow one more card to give you that extra reach in the late game. It's so sweet.

EDIT: Forgot about the Quarantine Field and Green Retreat I traded for.

 

[shamizy]

Some more adds that came in today before an eight man draft tomorrow night (hopefully!):

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Impulse was just a filler card I added when I bumped my list up to 420 (ayyyyy) a while back, but it's not one that's very exciting at all to me. Retreat seems fun and maybe we'll see someone go apeshit with the Knight of the Reliquary combo. That would be dope. I don't have the fetchland density that many of the other cubes around here have however (I don't like playing with proxies), so I don't think we'll see any serious abuse unless someone goes like P1P1 KoTR, P1P2 Enlightened Tutor, P1P3 Retreat, draft all the fetches. Still, wouldn't mind seeing a Bant Knightfall deck.

DTK Surrak was on okay option at the 4 slot, but he was also really boring. A dude who hastes up your next big threat is cool and all, but he didn't have as much interesting play to him as any of the other 4 drops I'm currently running. Wanderer seems like a nice card to try out as it scales well with the game, plays offense and defense well, and it can't be chumped easily at a larger size. One of the few converge cards from this set I really liked (the other being Radiant Flames). I'll make sure to report with the 3-0 deck and on the new BFZ cards as soon as I can.

Oh yeah, Skrap is also dropping by if we can fire this draft with 8 people so that'll be pretty tight.

 

[shamizy]

Alright, so a quick report from last night's cube session. Managed to sorta run an 8 man draft today, we had one guy arrive like an hour late in the final pack so we drafted 7 people and he pretty much played sealed. It worked out somehow. The winning decklist was Naya Superfriends and it met the sealed pool which came together as a Jeskai deck in the 2-0 bracket:

Naya Superfriends

Jeskai Sealed

Some other lists we had included:

Spoiler

Red Aggro (Me)

UB Control (Skrap)

BG Beatdown

I'd say of all the decks that I saw last night, the BG beatdown deck was definitely the sweetest. I went boring Mono-Red b/c I got passed a bunch of Wastelands and wanted to punish fools (which happened). So against BG I lost G1 because I came out with a quick start of one drop one drop, both of them two power dudes, but he had already assembled Gravecrawler and Carrion Feeder. Then he followed it up with a second Carrion Feeder and an Urborg and I knew that there was no way I could race and hope to win. Once he had a 5/5 and a 4/4 on the field, I saw that no matter what I did I'd be like 5 points of damage short and just die on crackback. Game Two I sided in an Anger of the Gods which led to a funny sequence against Inquisition of Kozilek where he had to choose one of Anger and Red Sun's Zenith with a Feeder/Gravecrawler board again. Actually a hard choice with my board that had some 2 power guy alongside a Young Pyromancer. He gave me the Zenith which I never actually got to aim at Carrion Feeder but helped me to burn him out a few turns later. G3 I went deeper by siding in one forest to splash for Huntmaster of the Fells who carried me to victory by eating zombies and Faeries that came in off sideboard Bitterblossom. I had burn in hand but couldn't fire it off till I got him low enough. Ravaging Blaze was sitting forever until I was able to unlock spell mastery and then kill him when he tapped out with exactsies on the burn. That was a fun little tension in the game.

Now for some quick hits:

• I usually seed in new cards into the final 360 pool for draft, it was kind of shitty this time because Retreats are super filler 13th-14th pick for the most part and they were in the 10 cards that I tried out tonight. 10 cards is too many to seed into a 315 pool (we were one short, that dude made a sealed deck). A few of the cards were hits tonight though. The issue with those that failed might have been that they were gold cards? I'll probably need another draft or two to figure out if I wanna cut them or not.
• Zulaport Cutthroat is the second Blood Artist many of us have wanted and it's really fair. Human to boot, really wanna see it in a BW Humans build sometime with Champions.
• Greenwarden of Murasa is sweet, Treeternal Witness put in work for the Naya Superfriends player by rebuying any killed walker and then reloading the board. It's a great beater as well, so it's often trading for a card.
• Quarantine Field was aweomse, a scaling O-Ring is fantastic and my drafters are pretty cool with paying one more in the base case if it means a larger impact later in the game. Naya player fired it off for X = 3 at one point in the night which must be the most amazing feeling ever.
• A quick swap I made right before the cube was Hero of Oxid Ridge for Hellrider because that aggro curve was way too strong and Hellrider leads to way fewer decisions because of how that trigger works. Hero's Battle Cry and pseudo evasion made it pretty awesome in certain corner cases that popped up.
• I pulled off Abbot of Keral Keep flipping Reckless Charge like twice tonight. It was the grossest thing ever.

 

[Aoret]

Small note: I was running FoF instead of priest of blood rite for most of the evening, but sided into the priest round 3 against Shamizy because spending a turn doing nothing meant dying. (not that priest is that much of a better option but at least it's two blockers)

 

[shamizy]

Been a little over a month since the last update, here's a pretty big one right before the Commander 2015 adds and (hopefully) an 8-man draft in the next two weeks:

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Defiant Strike was an okay idea and I made it work in one draft with a prowess deck, but it just never caught on with the drafters here. Brought back Boros Reckoner now that the mana is much better a year later and b/c I wanted some more fun cards. I also want to see the Blasphemous Act combo once.

Mystical Tutor and Frantic Search are in b/c I'm trying to give my drafters a chance to be more tech-y and sometimes assemble EOT combos and whatnot. Search is also part of my second attempt at making non-oppressive reanimator a thing with the newly spoiled Meren.

As you can see from the adds, there's a lot of reanimator support being put in. I'm looking for fairer options than usual and I've looked over a few of the cubes here for some ideas. Exhume was one I added a while back that I've been pleased with. Unearth is a card I really really like and looking over my cmc 3 or less count, it should be decent.

For red I've swapped out Welder for Outcast b/c Welder never saw any play and I don't really have explicit support for a U/R welder theme. Outcast already did work in our quilt draft on Tuesday (which I'll go into more detail about) by making dragons and somehow living for 6 whole turns on board as a T1 play. I don't know why or how that happened. Flamewake Phoenix is just a placeholder for now, probably replacing it with Magus of the Wheel ASAP, also swapped out Lightning Strike for Radiant Flames b/c I wanted more pseudo-wipes and less burn to the face. The most exciting add to me is Nightbird's Clutches. It's the card I've wanted for red based aggro for a while to get past midrange and it has flashback to have a big turn late after a board stall. I love it in an INN draft we had a month back with my R/B deck, hoping for the same here. I'll keep you guys posted.

The Eidolon of Blossoms experiment is over for now, there just wasn't enough hype for enchantments to make it viable for me. You had to really go deep to make a sweet deck and the payoff was often times not there. Instead, I'm going back to boring old ramp with dorks b/c my drafters have been missing it. There's also enough hate throughout the cube to keep any especially busted starts in check or find a way to catch up by wiping out small dudes.

And now for gold cards. Storm's Fury is swapped out for Falkenrath b/c we've gotten a handful of nice fliers in the last year that come down and can help deal with it (Dragonlords, Thunderbreak, Icefall, etc.). I do love dash, but it's time to go back to a powerful classic that isn't so impossible to deal with. Kolaghan was actually kinda obnoxious with that giant ass. Brutal Expulsion out for Izzet Charm b/c 4 mana was just too much to keep up for that effect and Izzet Charm is just super utility. Finally got around to moving Dragonlord Atarka from Prossh EDH to Cube, so now there's that sweet ramp target. Finally, I also got rid of Obzedat b/c it was just such a boring goodstuff card. Instead we now have Shambling Vents which is a super sweet manland that ended up being way better than I ever though. At 2/4 it would have been busted, 2/3 is just perfect.

I've also been on that planeswalker reduction kick, especially after adding all those Origin walkers over the summer. I just wasn't liking the sheer number of them I was seeing in drafts. They're cool every once in a while, obnoxious if they're seen every match. Jace B. and Domri were the cuts this time, Ajani Steadfast is likely the next cut because I like Gideon too much.

Oh yeah, I also pulled an Arid Mesa Expedition in a draft like 3 weeks ago, sold it to a friend, and came out with 2 ZEN Mesas and $20. So now I'm only six fetches away from my ideal mana base!

 

[shamizy]

So it's been difficult to get 8 mans going this deep into the school quarter, but we can usually gather up 4-6 people with no problem. As such, we've taken to quilt drafting. With a quilt draft, you lay out your cards in an alternating pattern in an 8 x 8 grid where you can only pick cards with the narrow edges facing out. You end up with a set-up like this most of the time:

Spoiler: Quilting!

So in this layout, you can pick stuff like Squee and Meloku in the lower right corner, but something like Ajani Vengeant is locked for now. Until the narrow edge is exposed, you can't pick it. For my group, we leave cards on the edges exposed, the rest flipped upside down. So if you were to pick Meloku here, you then flip and reveal the Bloodline Keeper, though it isn't yet available to pick. It adds a fun little dynamic to the draft, we've had a lot of fun with it.

So in typical cube drafts you end up with about 45 cards; here with the quilt you split the 64 among your table. So with two people it's 32 each and four would be 16. Usually it's just a single 64 card quilt one on one, but I suppose you could change the sizes of the quilt to ensure a certain number of playables. For 4 man, we actually laid out three quilts b/c we ended up hating eachother's picks in like quilt 2 so we had to delve a little deeper to get playables. Still, we ended up with 64 * 3 = 192 / 4 = 48 cards each so it was right in line with what we wanted.

I didn't get to log any of the decks but we had 5c Goodstuff, Mardu Aggro, Esper Midrange, UB Stax so there was a good variety of decks to be constructed. And most everyone got the fixing that they wanted so games were smooth.

TLDR; Quilting is a fun way to draft with less than 8 players, try it out sometime.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I love your write ups, and your persuasive reasoning often gets me to change cards in my own designs.

I'd be interested to see how you get on with nightbirds clutches. I'm pushing the can't block cards in aggro colours as well as graveyard themes but can't seem to pull the trigger on clutches as it feels so underpowered.

Changes look sound, though a little sad to see welder and read the bones go, but can understand the reasons. Am very keen on magus of the wheel too, think it's going to open up lots of cool plays.

 

[shamizy]

I love your write ups, and your persuasive reasoning often gets me to change cards in my own designs.

I'd be interested to see how you get on with nightbirds clutches. I'm pushing the can't block cards in aggro colours as well as graveyard themes but can't seem to pull the trigger on clutches as it feels so underpowered.

Changes look sound, though a little sad to see welder and read the bones go, but can understand the reasons. Am very keen on magus of the wheel too, think it's going to open up lots of cool plays.

Hey thanks for the compliment man, appreciate it.

I'm really interested in seeing how the Clutches work out as well. When I first saw it during the INN draft I was wondering if I was overvaluing it or not based on how I thought it would work out (ended up with two) and they were excellent. I also thought that spending the mana for that effect was probably not worth it, but it overperformed each time. I have loved Goblin Heelcutter in my cube, dude just carries aggro decks at times, and I think the Clutches could be just as solid. I'm also excited by the potential it has with Prowess creatures and for really big turns late in the game when it could be a topdeck and lead to an alpha strike pushing your small dudes through their midrange-y wall.

As for Welder, I just don't think my environment is the right place for it to work out. It requires quite a bit of set-up, is a bit slow, and the aggro in my environment can be very punishing if you stumble or durdle in certain matchups. Sure, it's sweet if you can create a loop or a lock, but it's likely that you'll either be on the backfoot taking heaps of damage or getting outclassed by bigger and better threats in the midgame. Or they'll just remove it pretty easily. Read the Bones was a good idea, but I just prefer Night's Whisper more because it's a T2 play. Some decks can afford to take T2 off and just setup, but T3 is way too crucial in my cube towards actually setting up towards the late game. It just never performed all that well except in super heavy control or grindy decks. And even then, if the decks were blue-based, there were often better options available.

Once I get ahold of a Magus I'm definitely going to give it a test run at the 3 slot, probably dropping the Phoenix for it. If that happens, I'm gonna try out Akoum Firebird at the 4 slot in place of Thunderbreak Regent for a bit, just to get a taste of a different option. Thunderbreak has just been solid in pretty much every single deck I've seen it in, on both offense and defense every time. A 4/4 flier for 4 with a relevant ability is really really good, maybe too good.

 

[shamizy]

Looks like we might end up cubing tomorrow, about time I got off my lazy butt and logged the edits that I've made over the last few weeks (mostly tonight):

OUT


IN


Thank god for Cubetutor, there's no way I would have remembered these one-for-one swaps. Anyways, there are no changes to the white section of the cube, but there are some major ones throughout the rest of it with ideas and strategies that I want to try out/revisit.

In blue I'm trying to see how well Gifts Ungiven can work with the new reanimator theme that I'm looking to push. Looking over my list I think I can create a pretty sweet BUG or Abzan styled reanimator deck with various enablers that I've plugged in here and there. Laboratory Maniac was a card that I had never really focused upon much but there was some discussion here a while back that inspired me to give it a second look and see what I come up with this time around. Maybe there's enough self-mill and card draw now to make that alt win-con a reality (especially with some other goodies I've thrown in!). Icefall Regent was a powerful but boring option so I figured that I'd just try out Enclave Cryptologist for now. A filter option for control decks, a way to loot things into the graveyard, and another one-drop that might finally be able to help curve someone into Thassa beatdown? I think I've only seen it happen once, but maybe I'm finally at the critical mass of 1 + 2 drops in blue to make it a real thing? Who knows. I've been looking for a few other blue 1 drops I might want to run and I have a copy now after taking apart a deck so why not. Icefall would routinely wheel in drafts and mop up certain matchups but it just wasn't all that impressive ever. I'll be on the lookout for something more interesting in OGW. Misdirection and Force Spike did the least amount of work amongst my blue spells, they were pretty easy cuts this time around.

In black I'm trying out a lot of new cards and revisiting some old stuff. I've brought back Gary and Geralf's Messenger because I wanted to bring back Mono-Black devotion while also giving aggro decks some reach. I remember there was a B/G deck a while back in one of my drafts and I just thought to myself that both of these would have been great in there to provide reach while beating in with Gravecrawlers and Bloodsoaked Champions. Maybe I'll see someone live this dream tomorrow. Easy cuts here were Vampire Nighthawk and Sidisi, Undead Vizier who are both nice cards, but neither is all that impressive. Nighthawk was originally there to hold back some of the bigger dragons that I had in the cube a few months back, but I'm cutting back on many of those in upcoming updates. Scourge of Nel Toth and Ob Nixilis Reignited are in as new finishers in black, flipped out Doomwake Giant for Scourge while I swapped out some red card (I think Magmatic Insight) to make room for Ob. I'm excited to see Scourge in action, I've got high hopes for it as a fair reanimation target that isn't oppressive that also happens to double as a sac outlet. I've been on a planewalker reduction kick lately, but I just had to find a slot for Ob because he was too sweet to ignore. He does everything I want in a black based control deck. Finally, for spells I've added Painful Truths (which is really a 3 color card), Wretched Confluence and Transgress the Mind. Truths is probably one of the sweetest non-blue card draw options we have and is a payoff for those who went three colors, Confluence is one of the most fair of the cycle and I love the design of it, and Transgress is to just bump up the disruption suite up by one card.

Red had a handful of updates with me going back up to double Young Pyromancer because I wanted to push spellslinger a little more with the upcoming Jori En card. I also swapped out Thunderbreak Regent for an Akoum Firebird to see what it would be like. Thunderbreak was just really good in basically every deck you played it in. A 4/4 on red that did it all was great but was quite boring. The Firebird is just a test run for now, probably will be swapped out if I find something sweeter in the next set to swap into that slot. I just wanted an aggro option to fill in the void for now. The card I'm most excited for is Magus of the Wheel however. A base 3/3 for 2R in red is pretty uncommon and having a wheel effect that you could fire off at instant speed is just crazy. He can help push a red based reanimation strategy forward with Feldon of the Third Path, can refill a red player's hand with burn to finish off the opponent, or maybe even become friendly with Lab Maniac and lead to some explosive Grixis Mill deck in the future. I dunno what will happen, I just think this card has a lot of potential and is well worth trying out in all of our cubes.

I've been unhappy with my green section for a while because so many cards were undesirable unless you were splashing for them. I think I might be closer to bringing green up to snuff by getting rid of some do nothings (Restore and Setessan Tactics) while bringing in a real payoff for a ramp deck (Avenger of Zendikar) and some sweet deckbuilding options (Life from the Loam, Sylvan Library, Collected Company). Deranged Hermit was a cut this time around because that card was way too stupid to up against. I don't think aggro can beat that card, straight up. If they ramp into it early I don't see how you get past a million squirrels. Loaming Shaman was sadly too low powered for my environment and never made any decks or did any work for us here. Maybe I'll revisit it in a couple drafts if reanimator becomes too strong or I need other checks. I also liked the new snake witness from the commander so I'm giving it a try. This brings my green regrowth effects up to 4 and I think that's a good payoff if you end up going base green. A recursive green strategy seems like it could be cool though I did get wrecked by an E-Wit + Kolaghan's Command loop like two drafts back so I'm going to keep an eye on that.

Finally, we're on to multi/colorless adds. I've swapped Ral Zarek for Dack Fayden because Ral was usually just a goodstuff guy who made his way to the final 40 on virtue of being a walker in this cube. He didn't really inspire any creative deckbuilding. On the other hand, I've had Dack sitting on the sidelines for a while but now might be the right time to give him another go with this new reanimator theme I'm trying out. Grove of the Burnwillows was moved from ULD (wtf was I thinking) to main cube because I had seen R/G decks in way too many drafts that got there because there was such a great fixing option outside of the main draft. I want there to be an actual payoff if you manage to draft Grove + Punishing Fire, not just something given to you in ULD after picking up the Fire in the main draft. Meren of Clan Nel Toth is my favorite card printed from the new Commander set and the inspiration behind all this new reanimator stuff I'm trying out. I made an EDH deck around here and she is incredible value at all points of the game. She's pretty much everything I've ever wanted from a reanimator card with a good sized body, valuable abilities, and great art. She definitely seems like the kind of card that would make someone want to go in on a reanimator deck while still being really good as just an addition to any GBx deck by rebuying threats from the graveyard. I expect good things from her. The last addition is one that I'm pretty excited for after reading more good things about it in the forums: Mesmeric Orb. I recently took apart my Sidisi EDH deck so I had one of these lying around and I can finally get around to it. It's a weird enabler for something like Living Death, can help with the Lab Man self-mill plan, and can serve as a secondary win-con in this 40 card format. I think there's enough incidental hate to keep it in check and I know for sure that there are decks that will punish a deck that tries to use this as it's primary win-con (Bx Aggro, Burn, etc.). I'll give it a run and see what happens. I can't wait to see someone win with some super jank deck that also happens to have Kozilek in there just to serve as a reset. Literally just counters/wipes/removal and mill. Please god let this happen.

Assuming we fire and have cool decks, I'll come back with some draft report in the next couple of days along with my BFZ potential adds and whatnot.

 

[RavebornMuse]

I really like a lot of these changes! Very excited to see how another Riptider fares with Mesmeric Orb Though that Eldrazi interaction is pretty sick, and I'm curious to hear how it goes. I actually left out Eldrazi deliberately out of fear that it would hurt mill too much (which I've nudged at many points in my cube's history, to varying degrees of success), but the thought of mill using Eldrazi as a reset button was a line I hadn't given much thought! I do worry about the feel-bad of someone trying mill and their opponent siding in their Eldrazi strictly to wreck the deck though - so please let us know how that works out (cuz I really would like to put an Eldrazi in my own list...)

Dack Fayden worries me a bit, and I kinda feel like he may steal an artifact once and run away with the game. I love his + ability though and would almost be willing to sharpie off the - ability if I ever purchased one. I'm looking forward to hearing about this guy, too.

Overall, though, I'm diggin it! Mono-Black Devotion in particular seems like an angle worth revisiting in my own list sometime after a rather lengthy time in retirement; I think the idea has probably ripened with time, now that we're further from that early Theros standard and can truly appreciate the novelty of the plan.

 

[shamizy]

I really like a lot of these changes! Very excited to see how another Riptider fares with Mesmeric Orb Though that Eldrazi interaction is pretty sick, and I'm curious to hear how it goes. I actually left out Eldrazi deliberately out of fear that it would hurt mill too much (which I've nudged at many points in my cube's history, to varying degrees of success), but the thought of mill using Eldrazi as a reset button was a line I hadn't given much thought! I do worry about the feel-bad of someone trying mill and their opponent siding in their Eldrazi strictly to wreck the deck though - so please let us know how that works out (cuz I really would like to put an Eldrazi in my own list...)

Dack Fayden worries me a bit, and I kinda feel like he may steal an artifact once and run away with the game. I love his + ability though and would almost be willing to sharpie off the - ability if I ever purchased one. I'm looking forward to hearing about this guy, too.

Overall, though, I'm diggin it! Mono-Black Devotion in particular seems like an angle worth revisiting in my own list sometime after a rather lengthy time in retirement; I think the idea has probably ripened with time, now that we're further from that early Theros standard and can truly appreciate the novelty of the plan.

I don't have a dedicated mill theme so I'll see how it works out. The Eldrazi reset plan is just what I've taken from Sidisi EDH where Ulamog and Kozilek (and Gaea's Blessing) were the reset buttons after self-milling for a zombie army. I think with only old Kozilek in a 420 list it's good enough to be a once in a while tech-y play instead of some hard counter to a self-mill deck every time. I don't know how long old Kozilek will remain in my list however, I'm really interested in the newer version b/c I just don't like how Annihilator plays. It's basically taking up the slot of ramp payoff card for now.

Dack Fayden is worrying in an environment with a lot of great low-cost artifacts, but I don't seem to have too many gamebreaking ones in my list. The majority of my artifacts are pretty tame or synergy driven, though I can see that stealing a Batterskull would be downright gamebreaking in most circumstances. I still think he'll be fine though because the last time I had him in the list he didn't really do anything too busted aside from loot really really well for a Worldknit deck.

Yeah, I was missing Geralf's Messenger and had taken him out months back to try out some other stuff at the 3 slot. We've gotten way too many cool black 3s in the last two years; it's hard to find slots with each release. With reanimation shenanigans spread out throughout the cube, it seems like Gray Merchant's ETB effect will be more relevant and exploitable than before. I've also been on a bit of a CC kick lately where I've been looking to push more cards with an XCC cost than XC higher up the curve to cut down on goodstuff decks that just splash for a variety of finishers. Messenger fits right into that theme since it's a pretty legitimate near curve topper for Bx Aggro decks just crashing in + draining for 2.

I also really want to see mono-black Pod come together just once to be honest. There is a theoretical curve of Gravecrawler--> Bloodghast--> Birthing Pod --> Pod for Messenger + Land + something cheap --> Gray Merchant.