Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
I'm still typing my cube list on cubetutor but sometimes I'm whether good at waiting nor very patient, so I have to do this:
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yes! Fauna Shaman is a super fun card for toolbox decks!
As someone whose research is basically evolutionary biology, fuck Richard Dawkins. The blind watchmaker is a terrible analogy and the genes are everything view of evolution is too narrow. And yeah... he's an asshole.
And what do you guys think about:
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Honestly I've found it great there too. If it's a synergy based enviornment, it can go find vengevine early and smooth out draws late (Pitch Birds find Titans), and if it's a more grim monolith enviornment, the tutoring aspect is crucial, given the vast power differences between random creatures in your deck and the broken/combo centric creatures they could be (Like the ammount of modo cube decks I've seen where half their creatures would be immesurably better if they were all palinchron split cards is a bit much)
Given it's already a 2/2 for 2, so it beats down reasonably, trades reasonably, and doesn't get picked off for free when your opponent cast arc lightning, it's real solid.
And what do you guys think about:
I love the flavor on Investigation, but unfortunately I don't see either as being cubeable unless you are pushing some kind of sac combo theme. Murder Investigation was basically unplayable in either of its limited formats, AFAIK.
Fate Foretold is probably the best version of this card I've seen since it at least cantrips.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Basically all of these cards require that you aren't losing, then require you to start losing before they do anything.
Fauna Shaman is great, a fixed Survival of the Fittest and that card is amazing. Useful for tutoring up a threat in the late game if you've drawn a dork on T6+, can fill the graveyard with cool reanimation targets as a discard outlet, and has a solid body to boot. I added the card like a month back to my cube and saw it in action for the first time last night pitching a dork to tutor up Prime Time and then getting Kessig Wolf Run to set up the kill next turn.
As for those auras, they may work in a lower powered environment to push certain themes forward provided you have enough support, but I'm just not a fan of auras in general aside from Rancor and any Bestow creatures. There's just too much blowout potential in my cube at least. Murder Investigation is kinda cool if you have some way to abuse it like Nantuko Husk did in Origins Limited, but that's also the best case scenario. When evaluating cards for addition, take into account both the best and worst case scenarios within your cube. If it's live more often than not and can generate enough value then go for it.
As for those auras, they may work in a lower powered environment to push certain themes forward provided you have enough support, but I'm just not a fan of auras in general aside from Rancor and any Bestow creatures. There's just too much blowout potential in my cube at least. Murder Investigation is kinda cool if you have some way to abuse it like Nantuko Husk did in Origins Limited, but that's also the best case scenario. When evaluating cards for addition, take into account both the best and worst case scenarios within your cube. If it's live more often than not and can generate enough value then go for it.
The only bestow-like auras I play are
and the one and only real bestow card, Boon Satyr. I'm also thinking about adding Bear Umbra, as I'm running no posts and no Ancient Tomb (but one single Simic Growth Chamber) I don't think it will become degenerate.
What about
I run it twice but I don't know if I should switch it out for Birthing Pod x2. Giving the creature haste and killing it at end of turn is somewhat lame.
and the one and only real bestow card, Boon Satyr. I'm also thinking about adding Bear Umbra, as I'm running no posts and no Ancient Tomb (but one single Simic Growth Chamber) I don't think it will become degenerate.
What about
I run it twice but I don't know if I should switch it out for Birthing Pod x2. Giving the creature haste and killing it at end of turn is somewhat lame.
To dovetail off the above, how does everyone feel about
vs.
Enchantress/heroic support specifically. I like the graveyard tie in with moldervine, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot worse than elephant guide most of the time. Thoughts? I want to run moldervine but it's probably the wrong selection of the two. Anyone want to convince me otherwise?
vs. Enchantress/heroic support specifically. I like the graveyard tie in with moldervine, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot worse than elephant guide most of the time. Thoughts? I want to run moldervine but it's probably the wrong selection of the two. Anyone want to convince me otherwise?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I like both. It depends on what play pattern you want to encourage: if you expect to have multiple dorks in play that get obsoleted quickly, I'd recommend Cloak as it's easy to keep suiting creatures up and always having the biggest thing on the board; if you expect to only have one relevant creature, Guide can ensure you always have an attacker left over.
Thanks. That's helpful. I'm going to keep Moldervine for now as I already run Griffin Guide and so the cloak is a more unique effect. Plus I have fond memories of running it back in Ravnica.
And what do you guys think about:
If Bequeathal had Rancor's recursion text it could be kind of an interesting take on a lower-powered Skullclamp. If you want something more reliable than Murder Investigation, check out Promise of Bunrei. It's pretty solid.
To dovetail off the above, how does everyone feel about
Enchantress/heroic support specifically. I like the graveyard tie in with moldervine, but I'm pretty sure it's a lot worse than elephant guide most of the time. Thoughts? I want to run moldervine but it's probably the wrong selection of the two. Anyone want to convince me otherwise?
Funny, I was just deciding between these about a week ago. I went with Moldervine for the repeated constellation triggers.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Has anyone run Mesmeric Orb?
On the subject of Mesmeric Orb, I remembered a Modern deck that Sam Black (who I'm a massive fanboy of) built during the Treasure Cruise era:
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It's similar to the 'machine learning' style of control deck that Adrian Sullivan used to write about: you use the broken delve spells to tear through your deck and remove useless cards from the pool, assemble Elixir/Crucible/Buried Ruin (you only need one of the pieces!) to replenish your library, and keep doing that until all that's left is a constantly recycled combination of either the best cards in the matchup (Verdicts and Paths or Cryptic and Negates) or a Time Warp to lock up the game.
Maybe actual Gaea's Blessing doesn't cut it in most Cubes nowadays, and a deck like this is never going to be a central feature of a Cube, but I've been thinking of ways to replicate it:
- Academy Ruins/Volrath's Stronghold to establish a lock; probably the closest to what most people already run
- Primal Command + some green Regrowth effect: sets up a loop in the long-term, but Primal Command can find you a lethal threat before that point
- Elixir of Immortality + blue card draw: there's enough solid card draw - FoF, Dig/Cruise, Ancestral Vision, whatever - that this is fairly easy to accomplish. The UW Elixir deck (I hesitate to call it 'control', it was a glorified Turbo Fog deck) that Ivan Floch won PT Portland with is a shockingly recent example. You can push it to the extreme with stuff like Alhammarret's Archive (post on this maybe)
- some dumb Eldrazi
The UW Elixir decks in that Standard were a thing of beauty. I think the key addition that pushed the deck was an unconditional answer to everything:
You have to be able to stabilize no matter what, and this thing is a nuke for the board.
You have to be able to stabilize no matter what, and this thing is a nuke for the board.
This got brought up in the lower powered card discussion, but it feels right at home here
This + Elixir could make a potent late game loop.
While I'm brewing with (potentially) sweet Elixir interactions, what about:
Is there a pile (including Elixir?) that draws itself every turn? Maybe its not good, and maybe I'm just spouting nonsense, but that would be an incredible draft deck. Maybe:
(I don't think that quite works, since Elixir shuffles the deck every time.) So we make our library perfect every time:
This + Elixir could make a potent late game loop.
While I'm brewing with (potentially) sweet Elixir interactions, what about:
Is there a pile (including Elixir?) that draws itself every turn? Maybe its not good, and maybe I'm just spouting nonsense, but that would be an incredible draft deck. Maybe:
(I don't think that quite works, since Elixir shuffles the deck every time.) So we make our library perfect every time:
Is the loop a bit random or am I missing something? It definitely seems strong regardless. I guess first you use elixir to replenish your library. Then you use Ancestral knowledge to exile stuff you don't want from your library and stack the top 10 of your deck. Then at some point (which you'll control if elixir was in the top 10) you draw elixir again and shuffle everything back in (including Ancestral knowledge). But then your library has been shuffled again so who knows when you get to stack your deck again. But if you only left awesome cards in the deck, then it doesn't matter too much.
I'm not quite seeing how the Doomsday stack works. It's almost there but I can't figure out how to fire it off every turn. Every other turn maybe, but then I'm not seeing why Dawn Charm is in the pile.
I'm not quite seeing how the Doomsday stack works. It's almost there but I can't figure out how to fire it off every turn. Every other turn maybe, but then I'm not seeing why Dawn Charm is in the pile.
The dawn charm is presumably cast to fog every turn and survive indefinitely.
But yes, Ancestral Knowledge only fixes up your top 10 when it enters the battlefield and shuffles your library again if it leaves play. So I'm not seeing it either.
I missed the fact the Ancestral Knowledge shuffles when it leaves play. So you're right, it doesn't work as a loop.
That's the key idea with Elixir/Gaia's Blessing decks. Your deck itself gets stronger given enough time. I was just trying to see if you could set up a draw-the-whole-deck-every-turn loop, which it looks like you can't (at least from what I've got so far).
Let's see...if you make the stack Shardless Agent, Ancestral Visions, Kolaghan's Command, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and Arachnogenesis, and already have Necropotence and Crystal Shard in play, I think that does it.
I'm a couple days late to the party here (so many good posts to keep up with these days!), but if your cube is only "moderately-strong", then I would suggest looking at the M15 Soul Cycle instead of titans:
It really depends on what you mean by "moderately-strong", but that is the term I often use for my cube. Most of the titans are too strong for my set, but the souls are great control finishers. I currently run the red and black ones, but green and blue would fit my target power range just fine. White is probably a bit too strong, and the colorless one isn't worth it for a number of reasons.
I often use a power level evaluation trick others have talked about around here: "Would I still want this card in my deck if it had a higher cmc?" If yes, seriously consider if it's too powerful. In my cube, I would probably pay 7.5-8 for a titan. But I doubt a soul would be worth 7cmc very often, so they tend to fill the role needed without warping the format.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Just please get the promo soul of zendikar art:
