Chris Taylor
Contributor
Saf, I've come up with the best change Savvy Trader clearly didn't need:
sharzad (safra's cube)
- Thread starter safra
- Start date
Dom Harvey
Contributor
ok but when did it have extort
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Look man, you know the answer to this and so does anyone who knows how to counter a spell
Execution is super slap dash but I love the idea of a trader having extort
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 UWB, with Red and Green running a more zoo-based creature section. In Red, double Stromkirk Noble acts as a natural foil to the density of human creatures. Colourless Eldrazi appear as a modular theme available to midrange drafters in any colour, provided they pick up the right mana sources. Double Matter Reshaper is broadly playable in control decks with mana rocks as well as aggro/midrange eldrazi lists.
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.
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 UWB, with Red and Green running a more zoo-based creature section. In Red, double Stromkirk Noble acts as a natural foil to the density of human creatures. Colourless Eldrazi appear as a modular theme available to midrange drafters in any colour, provided they pick up the right mana sources. Double Matter Reshaper is broadly playable in control decks with mana rocks as well as aggro/midrange eldrazi lists.
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, humansControl, dragons (a bigger skies deck than ), engine combo decks"Zombardment"-style aggro/sac decks, Fun Police, grindy control, reanimatorRamp, stompy, graveyard decksHumans tribal (more midrange-y than ), "Little kid", ramp monsters, CataclysmHumans tribal, Deadguy Ale, graveyard value decksLands, The Rock (and His Millions!!!), graveyard value decksTempo (dollar in the swear jar), Flash, the RUG matryoshka value decks we all lovespells-matter, Kiki-combo, controlControl, 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.
I like the term archetype suggestion, gonna steal that.
(part 1 of 5)
Better Know A Theatre - Jeskai Spells
The Jeskai colours are the home of a couple interlayered archetypes which rely on lower creature counts than average. Blue and Red are the two biggest ‘sifting’ colours in the Cube, contributing to decks that care more about card selection than card advantage. Blue and White are the colours with the most universal catch-all answers to Villain’s threats. Red and White are two of the most combo-focused colours; unlike in traditional cubes where Red is relegated to supporting cast, a number of powerful combo interactions rely on Red cards, in whole or in part.
Jeskai Ascendancy is the tri-colour card that signposts this theatre. An Ascendancy deck usually revolves around token-making spells or creatures, creatures with tap effects, free spells, and sometimes has a more Enchantment-based focus, using Academy Rector to tutor out the namesake enchantment, a threat, or removal. There’s a tight web of interactions that go into supporting the archetype, and it’s from these that I try to design the rest of the clan’s archetypes.
Blue and White are both Human Tribal colours, but Red is the minor anti-Human colour (Green's the major one, and Black’s neutral). This means that sometimes tempo-focused (W) Human tribal decks reach into Blue for permission and bounce, or Red for the good Red humans and reach.
This theatre is also home to the classic value-based control decks many Cube players know and love. The strongest mass removal in the Cube is in these colours, and some control decks use Show and Tell to play their bombs early against midrange. More dedicated combo decks pick up redundancy on the cheat-from-hand effect and prioritize card selection. Other control lists run Planeswalkers and board control effects to play closer to a Superfriends-style control pile. Yet others combine burn-based Red removal with effects like Soulfire Grand Master or Boros Reckoner to play closer to combo-control.
Finally, the Jeskai theatre is the home of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Splinter Twin terrorized Modern until it was banned, but Kiki-Jiki has potential outside of an “oops I win” combo, especially with Jeskai Ascendancy to create a large hasty board out of nowhere. There’s three combo partners, one per colour, so if Kiki is in the draft it’s eminently possible to build a deck that tops out with the infinite combo.
Better Know A Theatre - Jeskai Spells
The Jeskai colours are the home of a couple interlayered archetypes which rely on lower creature counts than average. Blue and Red are the two biggest ‘sifting’ colours in the Cube, contributing to decks that care more about card selection than card advantage. Blue and White are the colours with the most universal catch-all answers to Villain’s threats. Red and White are two of the most combo-focused colours; unlike in traditional cubes where Red is relegated to supporting cast, a number of powerful combo interactions rely on Red cards, in whole or in part.
Jeskai Ascendancy is the tri-colour card that signposts this theatre. An Ascendancy deck usually revolves around token-making spells or creatures, creatures with tap effects, free spells, and sometimes has a more Enchantment-based focus, using Academy Rector to tutor out the namesake enchantment, a threat, or removal. There’s a tight web of interactions that go into supporting the archetype, and it’s from these that I try to design the rest of the clan’s archetypes.
Blue and White are both Human Tribal colours, but Red is the minor anti-Human colour (Green's the major one, and Black’s neutral). This means that sometimes tempo-focused (W) Human tribal decks reach into Blue for permission and bounce, or Red for the good Red humans and reach.
This theatre is also home to the classic value-based control decks many Cube players know and love. The strongest mass removal in the Cube is in these colours, and some control decks use Show and Tell to play their bombs early against midrange. More dedicated combo decks pick up redundancy on the cheat-from-hand effect and prioritize card selection. Other control lists run Planeswalkers and board control effects to play closer to a Superfriends-style control pile. Yet others combine burn-based Red removal with effects like Soulfire Grand Master or Boros Reckoner to play closer to combo-control.
Finally, the Jeskai theatre is the home of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Splinter Twin terrorized Modern until it was banned, but Kiki-Jiki has potential outside of an “oops I win” combo, especially with Jeskai Ascendancy to create a large hasty board out of nowhere. There’s three combo partners, one per colour, so if Kiki is in the draft it’s eminently possible to build a deck that tops out with the infinite combo.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Oooooooooo
How's Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury been treating you?
Just added it, don't know yet. Sorry I can't be more helpful! The slot used to be Falkenrath Aristocrat, a real all-star of a card. Trying to run a bunch of dragons for stuff like Crux of Fate / 3 mana Sarkhan. I like that Kolaghan can swing for hasty flying damage too, and the go-wide support is probably more in tune with how my
token decks want to finish a game.Just added it, don't know yet. Sorry I can't be more helpful! The slot used to be Falkenrath Aristocrat, a real all-star of a card. Trying to run a bunch of dragons for stuff like Crux of Fate / 3 mana Sarkhan. I like that Kolaghan can swing for hasty flying damage too, and the go-wide support is probably more in tune with how my
I was just hoping I hadn't led you astray by suggesting it. It's a card my playgroup likes, and I love her, but she's not for everyone.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Interesting. I might try this out
GRN prerelease report + cube patch notes
tournament report
IN:
OUT:
There are now 13 dragons in the cube, giving them an as-fan of 'not a lot', but it's coming together as a 'themeless theme', anchored by Sarkhan, Fireblood, Thunderbreak Regent, and Crux of Fate. I hope to draft this iteration of the cube before Christmas.
tournament report
It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a prerelease. I think since…BFZ? But with the free Arena sealed voucher and the return to return to Ravnica,Magic’s greatest setting, I schlepped my way to the game store (after swallowing two edibles).
It’s a different store than the one I used to prerelease at. A narrow room is filled with one line of tables and barely enough space on either side of them to walk past. The counter stretches…6 metres? It’s a game store, like many and unlike many others. I showed up 3 minutes late and all the non-Izzet prerelease packs have been taken. Not much of a choice, izzet? God, kill me.
I get a promo Firemind’s Insight and a really conflicted Sealed pool. I have three Selesnya rares, a Steam Vents, an Assassin's Trophy (which I’m going to trade away) and the new 1R growing elemental guy. I have, like, no playable creatures, and end up reaching for two copies of Muse Drake just to be able to play more than 8 battle dumplings. I built into a grixis fliers/midrange deck, mostly anchored around my copious removal and my UUBB guy.
I always forget how long we’re allowed for deckbuilding at these events. I’m usually a quick deckbuilder, but the drugs kick in and I find myself looking at the same 25 possible includes for a straight 15 minutes. I cut my second copy of the 1UB enchantment and grab basics, and proceed to have a really pleasant conversation with the guy diagonal from me about Legacy Pox. What a beautiful deck! He confessed to running the 1-of granddaddy Pox, as well as 4 Sinkhole, 4 Wasteland, 4 Smallpox, etc. Gotta love a man who plays the 1-of. He said he plays Percy as a finisher though, instead of the Nether Shadow recursion/beats strat - “make a percy, swing three times, you’re dead”, he explains. Sounds interesting!
Round one. I’m up against a friendly Asian guy in his late 20s. He’s on BUG, and we have a good back-and-forth, but I take the series 2-1. Nothing really memorable or exceptional here; just some good old fashioned Sealed gameplay. I take game 3 with a reasonably-thrilling combo kill out of nohwere with Wee Dragonauts buffs and 6 points of burn going dome. Really great games, I say, and he agrees. I report the match win to the store owner, who I think gives me a little wink of approval. Who is this strange newcomer, who can win her first game? I imagine he’s saying. She must be a powerful sorceress.
Round two. I deckbuilt across from this guy, so I know that he’s on Naya and has a foil Trostani (jealous). He had a bye R1, so I’m nervous, but I pretend I didn’t know this when he explains it to me. “So, you feeling good, then?” I ask, and he replies with something that’s music to my ears: He’s a total scrub! He has no idea how to play Magic, and is “usually the worst guy in the room”. I’m about 5% wary of some kind of hustle, but I don’t think I’m being hustled; this guy is earnest about how bad he is at Magic, so let’s just have some fun games!
In game 1, I keep a risky hand with UR mana and two B spells. I never find a Swamp, and Sammy Scrub over here just develops a board and beats me down. The whole time, he’s table talking nervously about how this is the best it ever goes for him, and this is probably the best he’ll do all day. A turn before I’d die, I say gg and flop the hand, which now has 4 B spells and still no B mana.
”That explains a lot”, he says.
In game 2, I take a dicy mull to 4 looking for lands. I’m sitting on Swamp, new Rupture Spire, Dinrova Horror, Goblin Cratermaker, which is at least an all-stars version of my shitty, shitty deck. I manage to do some nice stack trickery with Cratermaker that fizzles one of his Auras. After clarifying the difference between Auras and Equipment, I take game 2 easily.
This seems like an apt point to take a moment to take a personal stand: I hate the way he taps his mana. He keeps all his lands in a single pile, behind his library (and therefore More or Less underneath his arm from my viewpoint). This game, he did this thing where he’d hold up 3 mana for like 4 turns, and I’d have to keep clarifying that he had mana up, with him even doing things like casting a Worldsoul Colossus with X=2 so he could hold up mana (I Dead Weighted it. Brutal). Turns out he was holding onto a Plummet effect; when I slammed the Dinrova Horror, he said “oh, that has flying, right?” and tried to kill it. Damn, sorry dude, but it also has Hexproof…
Anyway. The experience of playing against multiple people with really incoherent mana presentation made me resolve to be even better about my own land display. It’s something Magic Arena couldn’t possibly have reminded me about; the messiness and personal flair that goes into the way each player taps, plays, and manipulates their cards, all outside of the game itself.
Game 3 also comes down to some board stall where I blunted his early assault and stabilized with Wee Dragonauts. Once I hit 6 mana I did the 4UR split card spell to search for an instant (the jumpstart draw 2) and a sorcery (the 3bb murder surveil 2). That was my endgame value chain, and he just couldn’t beat it. I played really forgivingly and walked him through my understandings of several combats in a way that I think made him a more equitable opponent to me, and so for that reason I think we had some really captivating fun games. I really liked this guy, and I hope he did well after we fought.
We go to turns, so my idea to buy pizza before R3 is tragically dashed on the rocks. I still haven’t eaten (always take pills on an empty stomach, kids), and I’m starting to feel it.
My opponent this round is a happy looking fat kid, who the entrenched player cracking a box to my left apparently mentored in Magic’s rules. The moment we square up I realize he’s a “Real Opponent” in a way the round 2 guy simply wasn’t; he does the pro player card shuffling tic, announces every trigger, and his cards make the loud SLICK SLICK SLACK of a player who knows exactly which card he’s putting where, and who intends to waste no time doing so.
We both mull to 6. “Ooh, hope you didn’t keep a fast one, or I might need to go to 5″, I tease. He tells me he kept a fast one, I stay on 6, and true to his word, he Grizzly Bears me into the dust by turn 6. Brutal! I mire in self-abnegation. You IDIOT, I think. He said it was a fast one, I castigate. Oops! This is not the mindset of a champion. I reset quickly for game two. At this point we’re comfortable enough in the dance, two mature players (one a child) with cleanly-laid-out mana and creatures and full understanding of the Stack, and we’re bullshitting and talking Modern while we play. It’s a joyous experience, the best time I’ve had playing paper Magic recently. I take game 2 pretty cleanly when he’s stuck on two lands, and the land clump he hits on turn 5 is too little too late, even though he slams a locket as soon as he can play it. I misplay a little by forgetting some of his announced triggers during combat, and get a 1-for-1 on my Dinrova Horror instead of the 2-for-1 I’d planned on. Oops! I win handily, though.
In game 3 I kept a risky 6 - 5 lands and a two-drop. I draw more lands and just can’t spend gas fast enough to keep up, and he curves me into the dust with his efficient little battle dumplings. RIP, really great games. The thrill of combat and the hot copper Taste of Blood (I think I bit my cheek accidentally?) fill my veins.
In the pizza meta selection subgame, I walk in the door thinking Potato, but audibled to Feta and Sundried Tomatoes because I heard Boros had good chances against the field.
I walk back down the street to the LGS. The pizza did what it needed to and has loosened the feelings of self-doubt that come with your first tournament loss of the day. I am a champion. I am a queen. I’m beautiful. I visualize myself going 3-1.
My opponent for the fourth and final round is another teen, but he’s way worse than the cute friendly pro-to-be. He’s really soft-spoken, which wouldn’t be a problem but Putative Pro is the other match on this table and he and I are still occasionally shooting the shit, much to Surly Kid’s annoyance. Sorry, dog! I would normally use your turns to plan strategy or whatever, but he takes such ponderous long turns I feel like I have no choice. He’s moaning that he’s had to mull to 5 5 times already. My heart goes out to the kid, but maybe he should learn to trust in the heart of the cards!~
He’s built a pretty solid GWr aggro deck, lots of lifegain and Mentor effects. Exactly the kind of deck I’m not built to answer! But it turns out that spot removal works okay against mentor if you can keep them from having two guys attack on any given turn. I bleed out before I can stabilize game 1, though.
Game 2 I barely remember also, but I think I had a solid early curve and managed to discard his 1 answer in-hand. Hard to complain about that!
Game 3. Game 3 is scary. We both mull to 5 and have shaky starts. He hits me with early pressure and takes me down to like 5 real early, while I’ve managed to chip him down to like 16. FIVE TURNS, comes the booming announcement. Oh shit, I think. I have to take this. A 3-1 finish is so close, I can taste it. I end up stacking Wee Dragonauts and Electrostatic Wall triggers to find exact lethal on my last of the 5 extra turns. It’s incredibly, viscerally, beautifully satisfying. I feel electric, triumphant, and exultatory. This is my apotheosis.
I win…three packs! Oops. The kid who beat me in R3 came first (satisfying to only lose to the winner), but because of the byes, someone has a 3-0-1 record, and they get the 6 packs due to second. Still, it’s a delight to place.
TRADES:
traded away myAssassin's Trophyfor a K Command, new Niv, some cube cards / foils and some pocket change.
It’s a different store than the one I used to prerelease at. A narrow room is filled with one line of tables and barely enough space on either side of them to walk past. The counter stretches…6 metres? It’s a game store, like many and unlike many others. I showed up 3 minutes late and all the non-Izzet prerelease packs have been taken. Not much of a choice, izzet? God, kill me.
I get a promo Firemind’s Insight and a really conflicted Sealed pool. I have three Selesnya rares, a Steam Vents, an Assassin's Trophy (which I’m going to trade away) and the new 1R growing elemental guy. I have, like, no playable creatures, and end up reaching for two copies of Muse Drake just to be able to play more than 8 battle dumplings. I built into a grixis fliers/midrange deck, mostly anchored around my copious removal and my UUBB guy.
I always forget how long we’re allowed for deckbuilding at these events. I’m usually a quick deckbuilder, but the drugs kick in and I find myself looking at the same 25 possible includes for a straight 15 minutes. I cut my second copy of the 1UB enchantment and grab basics, and proceed to have a really pleasant conversation with the guy diagonal from me about Legacy Pox. What a beautiful deck! He confessed to running the 1-of granddaddy Pox, as well as 4 Sinkhole, 4 Wasteland, 4 Smallpox, etc. Gotta love a man who plays the 1-of. He said he plays Percy as a finisher though, instead of the Nether Shadow recursion/beats strat - “make a percy, swing three times, you’re dead”, he explains. Sounds interesting!
Round one. I’m up against a friendly Asian guy in his late 20s. He’s on BUG, and we have a good back-and-forth, but I take the series 2-1. Nothing really memorable or exceptional here; just some good old fashioned Sealed gameplay. I take game 3 with a reasonably-thrilling combo kill out of nohwere with Wee Dragonauts buffs and 6 points of burn going dome. Really great games, I say, and he agrees. I report the match win to the store owner, who I think gives me a little wink of approval. Who is this strange newcomer, who can win her first game? I imagine he’s saying. She must be a powerful sorceress.
Round two. I deckbuilt across from this guy, so I know that he’s on Naya and has a foil Trostani (jealous). He had a bye R1, so I’m nervous, but I pretend I didn’t know this when he explains it to me. “So, you feeling good, then?” I ask, and he replies with something that’s music to my ears: He’s a total scrub! He has no idea how to play Magic, and is “usually the worst guy in the room”. I’m about 5% wary of some kind of hustle, but I don’t think I’m being hustled; this guy is earnest about how bad he is at Magic, so let’s just have some fun games!
In game 1, I keep a risky hand with UR mana and two B spells. I never find a Swamp, and Sammy Scrub over here just develops a board and beats me down. The whole time, he’s table talking nervously about how this is the best it ever goes for him, and this is probably the best he’ll do all day. A turn before I’d die, I say gg and flop the hand, which now has 4 B spells and still no B mana.
”That explains a lot”, he says.
In game 2, I take a dicy mull to 4 looking for lands. I’m sitting on Swamp, new Rupture Spire, Dinrova Horror, Goblin Cratermaker, which is at least an all-stars version of my shitty, shitty deck. I manage to do some nice stack trickery with Cratermaker that fizzles one of his Auras. After clarifying the difference between Auras and Equipment, I take game 2 easily.
This seems like an apt point to take a moment to take a personal stand: I hate the way he taps his mana. He keeps all his lands in a single pile, behind his library (and therefore More or Less underneath his arm from my viewpoint). This game, he did this thing where he’d hold up 3 mana for like 4 turns, and I’d have to keep clarifying that he had mana up, with him even doing things like casting a Worldsoul Colossus with X=2 so he could hold up mana (I Dead Weighted it. Brutal). Turns out he was holding onto a Plummet effect; when I slammed the Dinrova Horror, he said “oh, that has flying, right?” and tried to kill it. Damn, sorry dude, but it also has Hexproof…
Anyway. The experience of playing against multiple people with really incoherent mana presentation made me resolve to be even better about my own land display. It’s something Magic Arena couldn’t possibly have reminded me about; the messiness and personal flair that goes into the way each player taps, plays, and manipulates their cards, all outside of the game itself.
Game 3 also comes down to some board stall where I blunted his early assault and stabilized with Wee Dragonauts. Once I hit 6 mana I did the 4UR split card spell to search for an instant (the jumpstart draw 2) and a sorcery (the 3bb murder surveil 2). That was my endgame value chain, and he just couldn’t beat it. I played really forgivingly and walked him through my understandings of several combats in a way that I think made him a more equitable opponent to me, and so for that reason I think we had some really captivating fun games. I really liked this guy, and I hope he did well after we fought.
We go to turns, so my idea to buy pizza before R3 is tragically dashed on the rocks. I still haven’t eaten (always take pills on an empty stomach, kids), and I’m starting to feel it.
My opponent this round is a happy looking fat kid, who the entrenched player cracking a box to my left apparently mentored in Magic’s rules. The moment we square up I realize he’s a “Real Opponent” in a way the round 2 guy simply wasn’t; he does the pro player card shuffling tic, announces every trigger, and his cards make the loud SLICK SLICK SLACK of a player who knows exactly which card he’s putting where, and who intends to waste no time doing so.
We both mull to 6. “Ooh, hope you didn’t keep a fast one, or I might need to go to 5″, I tease. He tells me he kept a fast one, I stay on 6, and true to his word, he Grizzly Bears me into the dust by turn 6. Brutal! I mire in self-abnegation. You IDIOT, I think. He said it was a fast one, I castigate. Oops! This is not the mindset of a champion. I reset quickly for game two. At this point we’re comfortable enough in the dance, two mature players (one a child) with cleanly-laid-out mana and creatures and full understanding of the Stack, and we’re bullshitting and talking Modern while we play. It’s a joyous experience, the best time I’ve had playing paper Magic recently. I take game 2 pretty cleanly when he’s stuck on two lands, and the land clump he hits on turn 5 is too little too late, even though he slams a locket as soon as he can play it. I misplay a little by forgetting some of his announced triggers during combat, and get a 1-for-1 on my Dinrova Horror instead of the 2-for-1 I’d planned on. Oops! I win handily, though.
In game 3 I kept a risky 6 - 5 lands and a two-drop. I draw more lands and just can’t spend gas fast enough to keep up, and he curves me into the dust with his efficient little battle dumplings. RIP, really great games. The thrill of combat and the hot copper Taste of Blood (I think I bit my cheek accidentally?) fill my veins.
In the pizza meta selection subgame, I walk in the door thinking Potato, but audibled to Feta and Sundried Tomatoes because I heard Boros had good chances against the field.
I walk back down the street to the LGS. The pizza did what it needed to and has loosened the feelings of self-doubt that come with your first tournament loss of the day. I am a champion. I am a queen. I’m beautiful. I visualize myself going 3-1.
My opponent for the fourth and final round is another teen, but he’s way worse than the cute friendly pro-to-be. He’s really soft-spoken, which wouldn’t be a problem but Putative Pro is the other match on this table and he and I are still occasionally shooting the shit, much to Surly Kid’s annoyance. Sorry, dog! I would normally use your turns to plan strategy or whatever, but he takes such ponderous long turns I feel like I have no choice. He’s moaning that he’s had to mull to 5 5 times already. My heart goes out to the kid, but maybe he should learn to trust in the heart of the cards!~
He’s built a pretty solid GWr aggro deck, lots of lifegain and Mentor effects. Exactly the kind of deck I’m not built to answer! But it turns out that spot removal works okay against mentor if you can keep them from having two guys attack on any given turn. I bleed out before I can stabilize game 1, though.
Game 2 I barely remember also, but I think I had a solid early curve and managed to discard his 1 answer in-hand. Hard to complain about that!
Game 3. Game 3 is scary. We both mull to 5 and have shaky starts. He hits me with early pressure and takes me down to like 5 real early, while I’ve managed to chip him down to like 16. FIVE TURNS, comes the booming announcement. Oh shit, I think. I have to take this. A 3-1 finish is so close, I can taste it. I end up stacking Wee Dragonauts and Electrostatic Wall triggers to find exact lethal on my last of the 5 extra turns. It’s incredibly, viscerally, beautifully satisfying. I feel electric, triumphant, and exultatory. This is my apotheosis.
I win…three packs! Oops. The kid who beat me in R3 came first (satisfying to only lose to the winner), but because of the byes, someone has a 3-0-1 record, and they get the 6 packs due to second. Still, it’s a delight to place.
TRADES:
traded away myAssassin's Trophyfor a K Command, new Niv, some cube cards / foils and some pocket change.
IN:
OUT:
There are now 13 dragons in the cube, giving them an as-fan of 'not a lot', but it's coming together as a 'themeless theme', anchored by Sarkhan, Fireblood, Thunderbreak Regent, and Crux of Fate. I hope to draft this iteration of the cube before Christmas.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
please attend more prereleases
or write about stuff other than prereleases
or write about stuff other than prereleases
I'm trying to make an effort to collect my MtG writing on tumblr:
http://mtgsharzad.tumblr.com
There's a lot of stuff that isn't there, unfortunately, but as I see good posts I spent time on I'm gonna be archiving them there.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Why clarion call?
RW board clear (my Boros is a controlling guild) that goes wild with Boros Reckoner pinata shenanigans.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
That card baffles me so much I didn't think I'd see someone want the lifelink
Makes me sad to see Ripjaw Raptor on the way out as Deafening Clarion comes in!
A good point! But Enrage and wildfire stuff just never caught on for my playgroup. Alas!
e: I've played Deafening Clarion a bit in standard midrange decks - you know how cube midrange decks don't mind running a wrath? This one's really good for them, while being pretty good to control also.
I think that's my favourite thing about it, it works as a redundant wrath for control decks but it really shines in midrange decks in the mirror or vs aggro and influences your deck building. I feel like the card has been really overlooked and I'd happily be running it if I had a bit more space in my boros section and was in the market for another cool wrath effect. Let me know how testing goes! I may reconsider.
Are you still cubing with Doomsday? I came across this primer today and wondered if Grenzo, Dungeon Warden could add another dimension to the already intriguing archetype. Thoughts?
Still playing with Doomsday, yeah! Enjoying it still. I only briefly had it alongside XBR Grenzo but it was more cute than deadly. Certainly a fun dimension for doomsday to take though! You could do the kiki+conscripts kill in my Cube, so maybe I'll think about re-including Grenzo, but I'm not really feeling it tbh.
I like the ideas in your cube a lot, and the description/Jan 2. post is quite good.
Got a few questions :
- I see you've written a "part 1 of 5" before your "jeskai primer", now I'm curious about the others (especially about the sultai one), I guess you never started them ? My jeskai is quite similar anyway, it's the other "shards" and theater that feels less defined....
- I see you've balanced the colours in tricolored cards (3 of each colour in 5 tricolored cards), but siege rhino strikes me as quite generic/goodstuff-y (is that even a word ?) and Kess/Justice less interesting, compared to sidisi/jeskai ascendancy who fits especially well in what the colours already did. Did you consider going 10 tricolord cards (which is probably worse) or using others shard/wedges instead ?
- Doesn't doomsday/laboratory maniac feel too poisonous ? I can see the self-mill deck sometimes happening, but I don't see many houses for doosmday except with lab maniac.
Got a few questions :
- I see you've written a "part 1 of 5" before your "jeskai primer", now I'm curious about the others (especially about the sultai one), I guess you never started them ? My jeskai is quite similar anyway, it's the other "shards" and theater that feels less defined....
- I see you've balanced the colours in tricolored cards (3 of each colour in 5 tricolored cards), but siege rhino strikes me as quite generic/goodstuff-y (is that even a word ?) and Kess/Justice less interesting, compared to sidisi/jeskai ascendancy who fits especially well in what the colours already did. Did you consider going 10 tricolord cards (which is probably worse) or using others shard/wedges instead ?
- Doesn't doomsday/laboratory maniac feel too poisonous ? I can see the self-mill deck sometimes happening, but I don't see many houses for doosmday except with lab maniac.
I always meant to write up the other 4 of 5 but time passed them by. Oops! It's something I'd still like to do so maybe I'll finish them this month.
I forgot to edit the main writeup, but Kess is now Nicol Bolas, the Ravager (dragons rararararara). Let's go into the sub-questions here one by one.
Siege Rhino. Just goodstuff-y? Yes! There are enough interesting and fun creature decks going on in these colours that I want them to have access to a really awesome value creature to help out the inconsistency of doing Pod / CoCo / 3c aggro. But there is depth to the Rhino, imo. Trample is deceptively good at dictating combat, and Cube is heavily about creature combat, right? Sometimes it's nice to just Green Sun's X=4 for a Rhino, or Pod into it, but to me those are the like, high points of these consistency-smoothing mechanisms.
I considered Anafenza, the Foremost, who would also go into the CoCo shells more easily, but I had an emotional hook to the Rhino from playing the khans-block standard deck that was just rhinos and clones, so I went with it. Ghave and Doran are bad signals, Karador and Teneb are dumb, and Abzan Charm and Duneblast are a little boring IMO for the 3-colour slot.
But hey, saf, if efficient removal is too boring for a 3-colour slot, what's with Fiery Justice?
Hey, man, it was the best option at the time. It's a flexible plague wind-ish card for decks that don't run very much removal, so it's nice to give them a really really flexible piece of removal so it can always be live. But there have been some new Naya cards: maybe I could be going for Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner (dragons rararararararara) or Tamanoa (Blas Act / reckoner / soulfire grandmaster combo stuff), or maybe even Zacama, Primal Calamity, which I think some people here have had success with. I don't really have the turbo-ramp decks in my format but that's more because they're missing a really solid payoff, and I can also see people sneak attacking out zacama and having a lot of fun with that. I'd like non-blue Sneak Attack decks to be better, anyway. Hmm.
Maybe Fiery Justice isn't my best option! I'll think more on this. Thank you!
How come only 5 cards? I didn't want too many tri-colours, so I tried to figure out a colour wheel that would let me play Jeskai Ascendancy and Sidisi (good eyes on that one). I think I tried a different colour wheel very briefly (uhhhh probably it was ascendancy, sidisi, rhino, kaalia of the vast (never got to Sneak Attack her; something I always wanted to pull off), and the RUG one was probably Guided Passage but should've been Maelstrom Wanderer.
I kind of like the sound of that colour wheel, tbh! What if it were Ascendancy (spellslinging), Sidisi (yard value), Kaalia (flyers / angels dragons demons), Anafenza the Foremost (hatebears / humans), and then I'd have to think more about the RUG card but maybe Temur Ascendancy for a way to build Fires.dec ? That seems really good to me, actually. I'd be losing out on a dragon (bolas 1UBR) but picking up some more heavily defined synergy.
Another option: Naya (fiery justice / palladia-mors), jund (broodmate dragon), grixis (bolas 1ubr), esper (Zur, the enchanter), bant (maybe the new Kestia, the Cultivator? Doesn't feel too "EDH-y", plays nicely with the bestow package (I'm still bullish on bestow btw) and cataclysm).
Would be interested in thoughts and feedback from others on this issue! I'm wondering if I shouldn't just run all 10 at 450; only a handful will be in any given draft, and I'm feeling pretty good about how on-theme this list turned out to be.
-Doomsday/Lab Man: too poisonous?
Yeah, it's still a more niche win-con, but I think I've come a decent way with it since I first started running the archetype. Lab Man goes in self-mill decks (Mesmeric Orb, Hedron Crab) and Dredge, as well as some sidisi midrange graveyard value builds. Doomsday is still the odd child out, and is usually a last pick (just like Storm cards, but I only run one copy of Doomsday...) - to address this, I think I'll run the XRB Grenzo + kiki combo package by adding back XRB Grenzo to the Cube.