sharzad (safra's cube)

[safra]

Hey, babes! I updated the OP of this thread, since it's been a while. It seems like it's fashionable right now to announce that you have a 'version two' of your design, so I guess this is mine. I'm reproducing the new OP below, so you don't have to page back.

SHARZAD: A Thousand And One Cube Nights


Cubetutor View Curve
Draft Link
Sample Decks

Sharzad 2.0

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the first post of this thread, and it shows at this point. I’ve made a lot of changes, both micro and macro to the scale and power level of the cube.

I started out with a vague desire to make a cube that was at a medium power level, and I’ve gradually shifted that to medium-high with the encouragement of my playgroup. My inspiration for this phase of the cube comes from the lovingly-named “dragon cubes” of yore; Cubes that veered closer to battlecruiser magic than the CMC-3-or-less-matters mantra that guided my earlier design. Because I can’t resist a joke, and it seems to work, I’ve made that literal; ten dragons (two dragons-matter ones) fill both the skies and the top of many mana curves. We're all chasing the Shivan Dragon when it comes to Cube design; let's be open and honest about it.

Brief points:

-TOL manipulation is relatively colorless, to reduce nongames due to mana screw and encourage combo decks.
-mana is really good! Providing an emphasis on mana-fixing means that even with packs that have potentially narrow cards, a good drafter will still be able to prioritize they’re excited to draft.
-No, saf, like...really good. OG duals, fetches, scrylands, creature lands? What gives? This is because:
-I’m aiming for a power level ‘between Modern and Legacy’. I want strong cheat/combo decks, the fetchland/brainstorm tension, and fast mana that doesn’t exist in the ‘fair’ non-rotating format. Wasteland and other land destruction police multi-colour greed, but decks will usually play 2-3 colours, sometimes with a splash. Players who want to prioritize fixing can do so, but still need to draft a coherent deck as well.
-Since gold cards are open to more players (3c decks), I can run a slightly bloated gold section. This lets me further establish color pair identities.
-Lots of 4 mana instants mean that someone holding up mana for your turn could be anything - a CoCo, counterspell, or even Necromancy.
-Custom cards let me bridge gaps where the intersection between two archetypes I am nurturing, or adapt a card I want to play to my power band.

A note on archetypes:

I have tried to design each colour to be ‘double-ended’, i.e. able to field a fast or slow deck based in its colour. On top of this, I have themed some of the midrange strategies and introduced combo archetypes to colours that have not traditionally been encouraged to have them in Dragon Cubes.

Humans tribal is the only true tribal deck in the cube, and it’s centered in UWG, with Red and Blue running a more zoo-based creature section. Colourless Eldrazi appear as a modular theme available to midrange drafters in any colour, provided they pick up the right mana sources. The mana rocks make double Thought-Knot Seer a natural way to include more Eldrazi without leaning too heavily on custom cards.

Combo decks are heartily encouraged, but often fragile. RW is a natural home for Kiki-combo or Boros Reckoner shenanigans, as well as berserkers-style aggro-combo with Temur Battle Rage and Reckless Charge. UB has the infamous Doomsday/Laboratory Maniac deck I insist on forcing. White is the main home of the hatebears theme (which bleeds into all other colours), while UBRG all have mono-colour combo shenanigans going on as well as the multi-coloured archetype decks. I throw a bone to Storm, but it’s there to support and justify Doomsday.

Card advantage looks different in different colours. White primarily deals in virtual card advantage and tutoring, but it’s not something the colour emphasizes. Blue has looting and card filtering (a la Brainstorm), but is largely limited to card selection instead of card advantage. Black pays life to draw cards and deals in graveyard-based card advantage, Red has card sifting and graveyard value, and Green is the home of tutor-based card selection. In my opinion, tying an element of many successful strategies and fundamental piece of a card game -- drawing cards -- to a single colour is a mistake. The sanctity of the colour pie is only a guideline in Cube, and I instead prefer to have players draft with a mind towards archetypes rather than colours.

Archetype suggestions:

Control, skies, humans
Control, dragons (a bigger skies deck than ), engine combo decks
"Zombardment"-style aggro/sac decks, Fun Police, grindy control, reanimator
Ramp, stompy, graveyard decks
Humans tribal (more midrange-y than ), "Little kid", ramp monsters, Cataclysm
Humans tribal, Deadguy Ale, graveyard value decks
Lands, The Rock (and His Millions!!!), graveyard value decks
Tempo (dollar in the swear jar), Flash, the RUG matryoshka value decks we all love
spells-matter, Kiki-combo, control
Control, combo, tokens aggro, Cataclysm

I also have five tri-colour cards to encourage people to check their greed at 3 colours; they fit in different styles of decks, so it's less appealing to force 5C Control in the hopes that they'll all wheel to you.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I like what you did with your more controlling red section, and I think the mana base is probably ok. The only concrete things I can add without playing the list, is that people tend not to play bounce lands when they feel their is a risk of being blown out by land destruction. I love vampire hexmage here as a walker killer, and voidmage husher is a card I really want to see do well. This looks like it could be fun and I hope your playgroup enjoys it.

How quickly paced is the format? I'm guessing its a bit slower, and more midrangy due to the mana rocks. However, your curve seems focused around 2-3 mana, you have weaker removal, a lot of evasive creatures, and your 2-3 CC creatures seem weighted more towards power than toughness. It might be much faster paced than I am assuming.

Just by eyeballing the list, here are some of my initial thoughts on cards:

Tribal
For my tribal themes, I prefer to take a "loose tribal" approach. So, to support my vampire decks, I run cards like Bloodline keeper, but stay away from narrow "lords" cards: everything has to be good on its own. I don't want to force people down narrow tribal strategies, that could end up being a trap. For that reason, I would stay away from a card like stormkirk captain, which as a gold color "lord card" is very narrow.

Cards that Should be Cut
I would probably pull hypergensis and assemble the legion right now. Assemble the legion will probably win every game it is resolved in. Hypergensis looks similarly swingy and unfun.

Cards that look questionable
Curse of the Cabal is a card that either results in a excess land being sacrificed, or ruining someones game. Eyes of the watcher should also probably go, since as a 3 mana enchantment, you are already past the point where you want to use scry to smooth out draws. It would probably be better to run another cantrip there, or a cycling card. Undercity informer also looks out of place, without a strong TOL, mill, or self-mill theme. Trespasser il-vec looks questionable without some madness support or a greater density of graveyard interactions. Small pox and vexing sphinx are both cards I have always wanted to be good in cube, but never seem to be. Small pox in particular seems out of place, as it leads to non-games, which you are trying to avoid via scry. I think vexing sphinx would need to have a much greater density of graveyard and discard synergies to be really playable. Is Chain of smog good?

Cards to keep an eye on
Skaab ruinator is something I would keep an eye on. As much as I like the card, he is very clunky in most cube lists, requiring a level of graveyard commitment that is hard to satisfy. Even with all of my graveyard support, I would rank him a mid-tier threat.

Drana operated at a very high power level in ROE, and might dominate games in an unfun manner here. Mystical teachings is a card i've found good to consider critically: do you have decks slow enough to justify mystical and targets those decks want to tutor for?

Support Concerns
I also have some reservations about running delver of secrets in this list. Delver wants to go into a deck that is ideally only 6 or so cards that won't flip it (not counting lands), and I don't think it should go into decks that have more than 10 cards in it that it can't flip off of (again, not counting lands), especially in a format without TOL tutors. This means, you probably want to have the tools for a strong U/R spells matter deck, and i'm not sure you have enough density to enable the really extreme creature light lists that delver wants.

I am also not sure you have enough cards with counters on them to justify the counter theme, or enough graveyard interactions to support running cards like commune with the gods or tracker's instinct. It would probably be better to focus on less narrow cards like mulch, which at least get lands for a non-graveyard deck. salvage is probably too narrow because its gold, but otherwise would be fine.

Curve
I also have a few pacing and curve concerns. Dismiss is a counter that is great in environments where you can afford to keep mana open, but can be quite bad in fast paced formats. Daze and mana tithe are worse in slow formats, where early development is not critical. Some of your ramp cards also work at different points of the curve. Dreamstone hedron, for example, was designed for a format where you were ramping into 8-12 CC threats. In that context, having a ramp card at 6 mana made sense, since in ROE six mana was maybe not the top of the curve and you needed to go higher.

Gold Themes
It was a little tricky for me to see some of the themes suggested by the gold section. For example, tracker's instinct suggests a G/U self-mill deck, but there dosen't seem much support for this in either color. I also didn't see many payoff cards to support the G/B self-mill deck, other than worm harvest, and a few reanimation spells.

Hope that feedback helps a bit. I'll give the list a draft later.

 

[safra]

Thank you for yr feedback! It's definitely valued, and certainly helpful.

Hypergenesis probably should go, yeah. I wanted to support a Show&Tell style deck, but without the creature power, I don't think it gets there. It also benefited more from a previous version of the wishes package. Assemble the Legion I'll cut, you're right that it's unfairly bomby. I included it at first because I have a foil and it's gorgeous, but I think you're right that the power level is too oppressive.

I thought I was already running Mulch, cutting Salvage for it is definitely an easy switch. I'll look into non-gold tribal cards; Bloodline Keeper is a good call. I think I'll keep the all-tribes cards like Adaptive Automaton

Curse of the Cabal is a remnant from a time when I was testing the wishes.dec deck more thoroughly. I think I'll change it into a powerful-but-still-castable black spell like

Mystical Teachings I tried to support with the Darksteel Sentinel; I think a 3/3 indestructible vigilance creature (with flash) has a lot of game to it; it can't out-power the 4/4s of the format, but it swings every turn and still blocks their best creature. It's still probably better in a Sultai deck to take advantage of green's flash creatures. Tracker's Instinct I was hoping would be a potential turning point for a GB drafter to splash blue, but I do agree that the power isn't necessarily there. While the split-colour flashback cycle aren't quite as permissive as hybrid mana, I do think they allow more deckbuilding options when it comes time to splash a colour for a CCc deck.

I'm still not entirely sure how fast or slow the format will be, so I opted for a variety of counters. I'll shift the less-useful ones to the other side of tempo as needed after it's been IRL drafted a few times.

Here's a few changes based on your thoughts:

- Assemble the Legion + Deflecting Palm
- Hypergenesis + Mulch
- Grisly Salvage + Gaze of Granite (I like the idea of gold removal wheeling to the control players who need it, though with Putrefy already in GB i'm not sure this is as needed)
-Delver of Secrets + Jeskai Elder
-Dreamstone Hedron + Su-Chi (4/4s are always good, and this lets Wildfire rebuild the same turn, too)
-Grisly Salvage + Jarad's Orders (bin a reanimator target, grab a relevant creature for yr hand)
-Stromkirk Captain + Backlash
-Dreamstone Hedron + Gauntlet of Power (mono-coloured decks need the support, and this does fun things at a decent cost)

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

So, I did a few drafts, here are the results:

R/U/b aggro from CubeTutor.com

G/W/r beats from CubeTutor.com

When I was drafting, I just pretended assemble and hypergenesis weren't there. After looking over the list again, there are probably enough incidental counter cards to support the proliferate cards.

Anyways, it was a pretty tricky list to draft, mostly because it was hard to get a handle on how fast a format I should be drafting for. Cards like ring of three wishes, icy manipulator, trading post, and hammer of bogardan tend to do better in slower formats where there is more sequencing room. Just something to keep in mind after you do your first RL drafts, those might be cards that should be cut.

I don't really care for the more narrow enchantment/artifact removal cards like revoke existence, as they are only sideboard cards. I feel like thassa, god of the sea should also probably be in this list.

Worldknit seems very powerful, and bolt also seems to push the power level. I would keep an eye on them.

I think the equipment and artifacts themes are way too narrow; and agree that if you are going to run an artifact theme, that the artifact count probably needs to go up. Right now, court homunculus, goblin gaveleer, and auriok glaivemaster all seem really bad. I also think you can cut some of the weaker changeling creatures (mothdust changeling) and scry cards (eyes of the watcher). You have enough loose tribal support choices that it’s not necessary to run extremely weak changelings, and for the weaker scry cards you can run more playable cycling cards: cycling has the same effect on the game that scry does but helps feed your graveyard strategies.

I think that the wildfire theme has some problems. It feels like while every other theme has very incidental support, the cube feels more or less warped around the existence of wildfire. A few things contributed to this feeling during the draft:

1. Planeswalkers. In a low power environment, planeswalkers are easily some of the most powerful picks, and the more tempo focused an environment is, the more powerful they become, as they give you a free spell every turn. Planeswalkers also synergize really well with wildfire: dropping a walker and then casting wildfire should win you the game. As such, it’s very easy to take a late wildfire, and build a deck off of early walker picks.

2. Bounce lands. I got the point where I just avoided bounce lands. There isn't really a strong multi-color draft incentive here, so you don't need them for fixing. Because of the way the curve is setup, there is no need to draft them to ramp, since most of the creatures are 2-3 mana. With two wildfires in a 360 card list, it’s not unreasonable to expect someone to see, draft, and play wildfire. If you are the wildfire player, you want your opponents playing bounce lands, and if you aren’t the wildfire player, you don't want to be the guy being blown out because you opted to play bouncelands.

3. Density of Sub 5 toughness creatures. The problem with this, is that it makes wildfire essentially WOG + Armageddon

Certainty there are ways to disrupt this strategy, I just wanted to note that I felt in the draft like I was either drafting for wildfire or drafting against wildfire. It looks to be a very powerful deck, easy to draft, that attacks the format from an angle that it is particularly vulnerable too. Wildfire on a field of sub 5 toughness creatures, and bouncelands while packing a density of the most powerful card type in the cube, is going to be hard to beat.

 

[safra]

Yeah, I'll make a bunch of those cuts. Thassa is a great idea, thanks! I'm also trying to increase the number of 5+ toughness creatures; my problem lately has been that I tinker with the list while drunk and don't remember why I made those changes in the morning. I think maybe I'll swap the bouncelands for fetches, which also lets me run the typed SHM lands (mistveil plains cycle) in my utility draft.

Worldknit isn't in the cube anymore, and I'll look around for good things to cut Bolt for. Maybe another Volt Charge, or something interesting and cheap like Lightning Axe to add graveyard synergy.

Most of my tweaking has been slowly amping up the quality of cards in the cube; it started out super miserable and grindy (and generally unfun) and I guess without drafting it in person I proceeded too cautiously. I'll add...maybe another ten or so 5+ toughness creatures with abilities that appeal to non-Wildfire drafters. I'll do some thinking and get back to this once I've made more changes; thanks again for the advice and suggestions. Probably the main ones:

-more artifacts
-more creatures that survive Wildfire
-look at removal suite to see if tougher creatures necessitates removal swaps (add Hero's Downfall to combat walkers?)
-focus more aggro creatures on having +1/+1 counters (Unleash, Bloodlust, Undying, etc.)
-cut karoos for fetches (probably? or drastically re-shift the curve; adding fetches seems easier.)

Thanks again for your feedback!

 

[safra]

So wow, "drastically [lowering] the curve" turned out to be a lot better of a design choice than 'wildfire and karoos'. Whodathunk. I could write some bs about lessons i've learned ('shamelessly lift from riptidelab so i don't have to do as much testing') but speaking personaly i don't get as much from those as i do just lookin' at some fuckin' decklists.

thanks, riptide! here's two test drafts that both ended up playing dreadbore, before/after riptidelab.

holodomor of good cards

jund is love, jund is light

maybe this is helpful to someone? I wrote a little 'what I learned' and replaced my awful earlier OP for those of you who get stuff from those.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Double inquisiton sounds cool! I love a good discard spell that isn't just thoughtsieze. (My personal favorite is a custom Addle that costs 1)

Questions:
-Has land's edge been drafted yet? Has it been a liability at all?
-How good has spiketail drakeling been?
-Have people had enough stuff to fetch? (At the moment your cubetutor list has Scry/Dual/Fetch/Fetch, I was wondering how much of a problem that's been)

 

[safra]

Land's Edge I'm still testing. Maybe it should be Seismic Assualt but RRR is awful and I think the 'each player' drawback adds some tension. (it doesn't hit creatures so you don't have to worry that all your dudes get killed by free shocks.) Hoping to make Loam less poisonous with the lumberjacks idea from the Gruul thread. Also looking at the non-Meloku moonfolk and maybe Gush (is this a mistake?) to add synergies. I think with Faithless Looting and Loam it's a viable (but not too good) 'combo kill' and turns topdecked lands into shocks for sligh.


Spiketail Drakeling has been interesting but I haven't played with it much. I will say that Spiketail Hatchling's 1/1 stats were very frustrating (so I'm trying the drakeling). The time I cast her she bashed for 4 and then countered a planeswalker - if your opponent plays around the effect you're already winning.

There's another set of ABU duals in the utility land draft. So far, people have at least most of the duals they need.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Land's Edge I'm still testing. Maybe it should be Seismic Assualt but RRR is awful and I think the 'each player' drawback adds some tension. (it doesn't hit creatures so you don't have to worry that all your dudes get killed by free shocks.) Hoping to make Loam less poisonous with the lumberjacks idea from the Gruul thread. Also looking at the non-Meloku moonfolk and maybe Gush (is this a mistake?) to add synergies. I think with Faithless Looting and Loam it's a viable (but not too good) 'combo kill' and turns topdecked lands into shocks for sligh.


Spiketail Drakeling has been interesting but I haven't played with it much. I will say that Spiketail Hatchling's 1/1 stats were very frustrating (so I'm trying the drakeling). The time I cast her she bashed for 4 and then countered a planeswalker - if your opponent plays around the effect you're already winning.

There's another set of ABU duals in the utility land draft. So far, people have at least most of the duals they need.

Ah, good call on the ULD. I can see an argument for swapping the scry and the dual lands positions, but either is totally fine.

I totally missed that lands edge doesn't hit creatures I'm way more warm on the card now, even if it can't ram nighthawks out of your way, you have other burn spells for that.
If spiketail drakeling ends up being mediocre, I'd suggust one of the more resiliant 3 drops: Serendib Efreet, Stitched Drake, Fettergeist etc. The 3/4s have been super key to a resilient blue deck for me.

 

[safra]

I've liked doubling up on IOK so far - really pushes home 'CMC 3 matters', along with tec edge and decay. Most of my X spells get hit by it too, which is nice. I feel like two discard spells isn't quite enough, but I'm not sure if the solution is 1-mana Addle or re-adding Hymn. I'll see which has more play the next time I microsealed (or whatever that 100-card pool 15-card decks format was? i love it for quick testing).

I haven't gotten to Loam's Edge someone out but in a 20-fetch format, recurring an instant-speed lava axe for G1 feels pretty good. I also really want to see a control player drop Meloku against it. It feels like right where I want to be as far as two-card combos go - it doesn't win the game, but it's an engine that lets you win the game if you devote enough resources. (maybe foundry/sword is worth a second look?)

I like the lower number of nongames main-list scrylands promote. Maybe 20 duals main would reduce the 'gotta draft that land right now' feeling but as long as they know they can get the tundra for a ULD pick they're more willing to pass it, and temples wheel way more often than they should (i have talked about this). I'll try the switch next time i have a full group and see what my players think.

My playgroup is pretty casual (prereleases are more or less the only tournament magic we play) and even though I keep trying to get them interested in proxy Legacy it hasn't happened yet. i just really like counterspells and filtering okay

 

[Chris Taylor]

1 mana addle is fun, but it's not something I'm like "OH MY GOD ADD THIS" level fun, it's just moreso than thoughtseize It reminds me of how Cabal Therapy feels to play, but that card can be hard to play with casual cubers and constantly changing lists. Wrench Mind is also an interesting one, depending on the number and quality of artifacts in your list.

I wouldn't add thoptor sword if I could help it. Neither of those cards is good on their own, and once the combo is assembled it's pretty unbeatable, but not so much that you just scoop it up and keep moving, it can take forever.

for the duals: It does put a lot of pressure on your ULD. Are the non-dual utility lands getting picked, or are people relying on the ULD to get their fetchables? It'd be frustrating if the rest of the lands were just so much lower on the totem pole because you needed the duals. Trust me, I love me some filtering too. The only reason the scrylands aren't in my cube is because they enter tapped

 

[safra]

I haven't posted about my Cube in a little while, let's fix that! (also some people wanted me to bump the thread)

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/4863
http://www.cubetutor.com/decks/4863
http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/4863

Design parameters:
-feeling of a cutoff between three-mana and four-mana cards
-run mostly cmc<4 cards (about 79-80% of the cube is CMC 3 or less)
-legacy-lite, lots of interaction and at a modern-ish power level
-fun
-archetypal synergy decks should be able to outplay goodstuff ones

I think I'm pretty close. Check it out and let me know if you see something egregious? The cubetutor draft AI is decent but if you want to help train it I'd surely never say no.

 

[Eric Chan]

i'll echo Diakonov's thoughts both in that this is a really sweet cube, and that this is the cube list i cross reference the most now when making changes to my own list, now that folks like CML are less active

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Its so weird when you see someone else's list that clearly has a clear and strong spiritual relationship to your own list, but as the same time is completely and utterly different.

Weird, and totally reassuring.

JTMS seems out of place. This is far from the first time I've called this card out and I'm sure it won't be the last, but I can't see it working in anything other then a legacy+ power level environment.

 

[safra]

i'll echo Diakonov's thoughts both in that this is a really sweet cube, and that this is the cube list i cross reference the most now when making changes to my own list, now that folks like CML are less active

aww shucks!

Its so weird when you see someone else's list that clearly has a clear and strong spiritual relationship to your own list, but as the same time is completely and utterly different.

Weird, and totally reassuring.

JTMS seems out of place. This is far from the first time I've called this card out and I'm sure it won't be the last, but I can't see it working in anything other then a legacy+ power level environment.

I really like your cube! Finding my power band has been a long process but I think I'm almost there. Big Jace used to be AOT until recently. My hope is that he'll empower control strats a bit more, and give my players more practice casting brainstorm. It's all well and good to -1 him until he dies but I've been pretty careful to include answers to planeswalkers. I'll be keeping an eye on him though and might switch back if he's too much but he didn't crush anything last draft (inexperienced pilot).

Maybe I should mark some cards in the CT list to indicate I'm keeping an eye on them, for my sake as well as other people's...

 

[safra]

After the recent (wide-ranging and detailed) discussion about combo in cube, I've been excited to push a little more combo. Here's some example decklists of a few combo engines that are in the environment. I haven't been drafting lately so they're from cubetutor, but i like to flatter myself that i'm okay at this game (also my bots are finally getting tolerable? thanks, AI!). I'm not running Monastery Mentor right now but the mentor deck is a good combo-control example so I'm including it too.

Aggro-combo:

Junk Combo from CubeTutor.com

Golemclysm

Combo-control:

Uw labman control from CubeTutor.com

Mentor Ascendancy Control

There are of course other aggro-combo and synergy decks in the format, and persist combo is back in as well, but these ones are intentionally combo archetypes. I hope they'll be fun and interesting to play against for a while and add more ways for decks to bridge archetypes.

 

[safra]

prerelease highlights: a tournament report, for slavish devotees thereof

so hey this time i went to a prerelease ALL ON MY OWN (okay yes everyone else had real things to do) and it wasn’t scary except for about five minutes.

i show up about ten minutes before it all starts and get my prerelease pack. then a schmuck and i perform commerce. i have opened the new jace, and a sick turn two aggro deck. i am happy about one of these things, then i trade the jace for some stuff (incl a second birthing pod so i no longer need to proxy those, suck it standards and poors), and i’m happy about both! I won three packs, making for a tumblr-grade success (i have no notes on the endeavour but consider it a pleasant waste of time).

round one i am paired up against the schmuck from earlier. he wins game one! I don’t remember a lot because I’m on acid and things are getting hella geometric, but I think he had a forest out at some point. I spend probably three minutes looking at his elvish visionary because it’s foil and the light is catching it just right but i don’t think he realizes either of these things. also i won games two and three off of Tragic Arrogance, a card that was initially pitched to me as ‘nerfed Cataclysm’. it turns out it’s not nerfed at all and me getting to pick is HUGE. i am fucking loving this when my opponent corrects me but i just nod and say ‘oh, okay’ and fist-pump on the inside instead. one-oh.

round two, game two, i concede at like 16 life, because i’m too far behind and i’ll just get him g3. a few minutes after i don’t do anything he just shrugs and goes ‘okay’. I hadn’t sideboarded and really didn’t have an out (thopter spy network, endless chump blockers) and i tanked so long i forgot that he won the first game! whoops. one and one.
round three my opponent takes FOREVER to do ANYTHING. I assume that this is because time is an illusion but it turns out that actually game one really was half an hour of him hemming and hawwing over his hand. I get unfairly offended but don't say anything because I'm trying to work out why he's so fucking confident. I curved out dead kids>archangel>suppression bonds on turns three through five and new cataclysm on turn six and the guy was still like ‘no, i’m in the game here’

game two i cast archangel of tithes on turn four and on turn six he drops that stupid portcullis angel so i obviously have to respond by flipping his lili and then faiths fettersing her second-main phase. he flicks his cards against each other, plays out his hail mary, and I cantrip Hallowed Moonlight into the card I need to draw Tragic Arrogance on turn seven and cast it to winSTILL IN THE GAME
(2-1)

round four i intentionally drew, which was fine, and traded away more standard cards, which was better. I went for a really lovely walk, started listening to MF DOOM, and writing this post. this is the present.

at some point i was talking with a guy about cube, and later about his copy of riptide laboratory that i would like to pry from his (surprisingly clenched???) fingers and so of course i go ‘you know, riptide lab, that’s a cube forum too’ and he actually says yes? so guy if you’re reading this i’m sorry for being so awkward. you were pleasant and probably didn’t need to put up with me but you did, even waiting for my game to finish, and for the sake of three pieces of cardboard! also for the sake of yr complex system of values and judgments. when i think back on the lesson of the story here, i will remember above all else that the new jace is really really bad you guys.

IN

(company #2 comes in for pod #3)

OUT (notable)

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This didn't make a whole lot of sense at times but still was entertaining to read I am glad Tragic Arrogance was such a blast, because it's definitely going into my cube as well!

 

[shamizy]

Tragic Arrogance seems pretty interesting, I didn't realize that having the ability to choose made it that much better. I'll definitely pick up a copy now.

Do you not like Jace for Limited/Constructed or at all? I think he's fine in Cube as a looter/dude-who-enables-earlier-delves. Also I could see the ability to stick wraths in the grave and flash them back as not being completely irrelevant.

 

[safra]

Tragic Arrogance seems pretty interesting, I didn't realize that having the ability to choose made it that much better. I'll definitely pick up a copy now.

Do you not like Jace for Limited/Constructed or at all? I think he's fine in Cube as a looter/dude-who-enables-earlier-delves. Also I could see the ability to stick wraths in the grave and flash them back as not being completely irrelevant.

He's a solid card but I'm not really interested in his planeswalker side and while an 0/2 looter is interesting I think that I want the consistency of Thought Courier. I was just not afraid of opposing Jaces at my prerelease, and I'm sure he's interesting for quite a lot of different reasons! But I want my merfolk looter slot to be a merfolk looter, consistently. I'm sure more play might prove me wrong though so I'll be picking up a set of the flipwalkers post-rotation probably. Chandra interests me a lot more than Jace does because she does a cool thing and cares about a cool different thing. Jace is an interesting card that's gonna do cool things in Standard (Modern?) but he's not what I've been looking for historically.

LATER EDIT: ahaha wow was I ever wrong. Jace Uber Alles.

 

[shamizy]

I took a look over your green section to get some ideas and saw Loaming Shaman there. How good has it been? What decks normally run it?

I've had Khans Sidisi in Cube for a while now and the only deck I've ever seen that could effectively use it was a sweet Sultai Pod deck that also had a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as a means of resetting the deck. Loaming Shaman seems like it could do a good job as a reset + a means of reanimator hate in green that isn't Deathrite or Scavenging Ooze.

 

[safra]

I took a look over your green section to get some ideas and saw Loaming Shaman there. How good has it been? What decks normally run it?

I've had Khans Sidisi in Cube for a while now and the only deck I've ever seen that could effectively use it was a sweet Sultai Pod deck that also had a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as a means of resetting the deck. Loaming Shaman seems like it could do a good job as a reset + a means of reanimator hate in green that isn't Deathrite or Scavenging Ooze.

pretty solid. G/x decks that go long like to up their gas/non-gas ratio, Pod likes it to bring back toolbox pieces (or, y'know, four-drops), and it's a piece of redundancy in graveyard decks. Add in that it's maindeckable graveyard hate and forgives weak deckbuilding (oh no I used all my interaction already) and it's quietly been a role-player here. It doesn't block very well, but at least it has 3 power.

 

[safra]

I've been thinking about a set of cuts to bring scrylands into the environment. 10 is fine main for now I think, I want the fetch/dual dynamic to have the redundancy 40 slots gives it. I think I want to go up another Wasteland, from 2 to 3 copies, just as another piece of the puzzle.

Also, RavebornMuse's cube is really cool and discussion on its thread gave me a few more cards I want to add, so as long as I'm making tough cuts:

In:



Out:

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Molten vortex out already? Ouch. What happened?

 

[safra]

Molten vortex out already? Ouch. What happened?

Too narrow for ~305 nonland slots. It's fine, I want it back at some point, but it felt like one of the less painful cuts. Might come back in for Seething Song eventually, i'm no charles babbage

e: stream-of-consciousness'd a thing

I'm at 3 wastelands right now. Assuming I fire 8mans, here's some napkin math:

Some decks (high curve / tight gold colours) don't want Wastelands to begin with. Let's say there's three drafters who'd pass Wasteland for any dual, three who get one, and two players who'd be happy with one in their deck but are playing around it instead. (Presumptive, but that's why I'm doing math.)

So a 15-card pack with a Wasteland in it has a 62.5% chance that the pack's opener even wants a Wasteland, and each drafter has a 75% chance of opening one of those packs. In pack one, it's a pretty sweet way to stay open in colours, so let's assume everybody wants the pack one Wasteland between picks one and three - there's a chance you might not even see the Wastelands to draft them, much like my existing doubled-up cards (brainstorm in particular). Packs two and three we'll allow for them to wheel for the sake of the equation. In pack three it's possible you need something else much more and can't take the Wasteland you want, but that's just draft dynamics on the power/synergy axis so I'm not going to quantify it.

Pack 1, two Wastelands opened: 22% (45 and 4 percent for one and three respectively)
SO: one in five drafts, two wastelands go three picks or fewer. Maaaybe the third one later takes this up to one in four. Every other draft someone grabs an early wasteland and it informs their deckbuilding. No pack two or three wastelands is pretty rare and I'd probably first try to address issues that show up more often than once every twenty-five drafts (if you draft every other week, this is once a year, AKA Magical christmas land).

Just how snap-pickable does that make it? Is it concerningly so? Wasteland keeps splashes honest - you'd never have seen Ajundi in legacy (punishing junk and blue jund are hilaribad, although Shardless "blue jund" Sultai is a sweet deck). It's okay to assume ~1 wasteland a draft round, and multiple Wastelands can either be synergy or antisynergy (why can't i cast all my spells). Do I need more copies to keep manabases down, or is three enough? Too many? The 4-of / 2-of saturation in Legacy is kind of like having 2 or 1 in your draft deck so I was hoping 3 would be the magic number to see that kind of distribution - it's certainly how 3 copies of Pod worked out. (two to the Pod drafter, one to a combo deck)

Assuming entirely random distribution (i.e. Sealed), a 3-WL 360-card environment has a significantly lower chance of a 2+wasteland deck (HYPGEOM 360 3 90 2, P(X > 2) = 15%) than a 4-WL 360-card environment (26%). How much draft priorities differ from random noise I don't think I'll ever figure out, but the Sealed numbers are telling me 4 is probably too many if I'm worried about the number of two-Wasteland decks and the consistency they can blow up lands with. (there's a 6% danger in two-wasteland 360-card sealed, more or less our Christmas odds from earlier.)

All without even playing Magic!