Tea for Two

[Cultic Cube]

Hi all! I would welcome any feedback on my cube if you have an opportunity to cast an eye over it. http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/77247 It is an unthemed paper 360 cube, no power and no storm. I have been tinkering with it for a year or so, and I have only ever played it one-on-one, typically grid drafting. I have budgetary constraints, and my personal restriction is that I only proxy lands. The cube is singleton, save for a Riptide-inspired choice to include two sets of fetch lands. (In fact, I recently slotted out all the signets save Izzet for the second set of fetches.) I include no utility lands. This may be a mistake? I feel that if I included powerful lands, I would need also to make room for LD effects, which I mainly find to be annoying.

Here are some things I've been mulling over:

1. Is aggro adequately supported? My (small) playgroup isn't much into aggro, so it's just not a place anyone is super inclined to end up. I have managed to put together pretty successful Rw and Wb aggressive decks. Actual RDW or pure white weenie is pretty hard to arrive at, though, particularly when grid drafting. (We only see 18x9 cards = 162, or 45% of the cube; plus, linear strategies can be easier to cut off than in a typical draft setting, especially given perfect information.)

2. Some guilds have stronger identity than others. Golgari, for instance, I just don't really know what to do with, perhaps because Jund and The Rock just aren't historically my kinds of deck. In fact, the Jund guilds -- Golgari, Rakdos, and Gruul -- probably have the weakest themes. Conversely, Izzet is possibly overburdened as I want it to support "spells matter" as well as artifact nonsense.

3. I have many artifacts and a lot of artifact ramp. Too much? I think removing the signets helped Green quite a bit, but it may be that I still have too much colorless ramp and fixing.

4. How do the ratios of the removal suites look overall? Creature spot removal, shatter and disenchant effects, even counterspells? I feel like these are in a pretty successful equilibrium now, but I could well be wrong.

5. Any themes I should support but don't? I toyed with +1/+1 counters (especially in Simic or RUG), but it felt pretty durdly and under-powered. I used to have a lifegain theme that I have progressively scaled back. The nail in the coffin was probably cutting Sanguine Bond, but you will doubtless find some remnants of the theme scattered throughout. Storm seems bad without power. Proper Reanimator doesn't really exist as a deck in the cube, but we have access to value reanimation, particularly in an Aristocrats-style deck. Is it worth running Entomb for value reanimation, Goblin Welder, and ma-a-aybe Flashback value but probably not?

6. Any strategies appear over-supported? I am thinking in particular of blink and artifacts.

7. Opinions about the stable of Planeswalkers? I'm running 13, down from 18, which has helped abate the constant superfriends superparty. I am trying to run PWs that are fun, flavorful, and powerful, but that are also relatively fair. Any stick out as bad (or too good) here, or any that should be included?

8. Are there any novel two person drafting techniques you all love? I just recently tried doing a custom draft on dr4ft.com with six bots and an IRL friend. This had the virtues of better modeling a real draft and being super easy to set up and clean up (no shuffling the cube, yay!). Bot picks were suspect, though. I got a last pick Grave Titan in pack one and a last pick Solemn Simulacrum in another. Some decks surely wanted those cards. Anyway, any other methods you all have found to cleave closer to the draft experience? Any recommendations for drafting sites that support custom sets, a mix of humans and bots, and that has good draft intelligence?

9. Lastly, are there any glaring gaps (cards, strategies) that you see? Particularly ones that can be filled inexpensively.

Thank you so much for any feedback you all might offer!

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Welcome Gnoll.

What kind of things do you and your play partner enjoy? The list suggests to me that you like some very powerful magic, with cards like skullclamp. In a vacumn, I would suggest cutting a card like that, or at least keep an eye on what you are enjoying it, and cut it when everyone gets bored of it.

Other than that, the format seems like a reasonable powered format to me. I would run more iterations of it, keep an eye out for cards that seem to be producing bad game texture. With just 2 people drafting a 360 format, you may have to adjust some densities as well, in order to adjust for how high the draft pool variance may be.

You also might consider taking the card pool, and experimenting with a couple 180 card grids, which i.m.o would be quite interesting.

 

[Kirblinx]

How do the infinite combos fair in your cubing experience? I usually find them a bit unfun, as winning out of nowhere is a bit harsh. Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki/Saheeli Rai combos are the ones I am referencing. Two card combos that win are a little harsh. Also, how many of these cards would see play if their other piece of the combo wasn't there?

Grillo hit the nail on the head with asking what kind of Magic you want to play with your partner. There are cards here that I am not too fond of as they can lead to unfun game states. If you do like these cards, then you need to buff up some other areas to make sure that they don't take over every game that they are played. Cards in this category IMO:


I very much like your PW suite. They are mostly in multicolour too, which makes them not as easily pickupable. None of them are the GRBS ones and generally have interesting play to them. The only

If you are interested in another 2 player draft variant Japahn posted a nice variant in this thread called Pancake Draft. I've played it this way a couple of times and it was great fun. Give it a whirl next time if you want something different.

 

[Cultic Cube]

Thank you all for the thoughtful feedback! I appreciate the suggestions about other draft formats to consider. Both of you are advocating for cutting some of the more powerful cards, which I completely understand. I have a few follow-up questions about that if you don't mind.

1. I wouldn't mind axing Pestermite, which, as Kirblinx suggests, doesn't do a lot outside of the combo. Then I'd probably kill Twin. Does anyone have an opinion about leaving in a value Kiki-Jiki? I think he's a fun card, but then his color requirement is prohibitive.

2. I totally understand the power level complaint about most of the cards you mention. A few that I wonder about, though: Griselbrand is a beating, but if my reanimator package is pretty tame, then he doesn't seem backbreaking, no? I sort of thought that Opposition was enough of a build-around that it isn't broken. Is it just good enough on its own, or just too easy to build a deck that abuses him? Finally, I run both Wildfire and Burning. These effects seem similar in power level to Upheaval and are supported in similar ways (brown mana). Do you all rate those as similarly suspect in power level, or do they seem more fair? And if they are more fair, why is that?

 

[sigh]

Upheaval is waaaay more powerful than Wildfire. Usually it just ends the game right that turn, even if the game does actually end for several turns.

Opposition is too easy to build around: play creatures.

Cutting pester mite still let's you play with Kiki combo, but in WR, which makes it a little more difficult to pull off consistently (blue is a better draw color), so I'd do it if you are looking to tame the deck a little

Griselbrand is probably fine. I ran him for a long time.

Like everyone else has said, if it's just two people usually, power level is totally up to you. If y'all are cool with kiki-combos, go off.

 

[Dom Harvey]

Opposition is broken if you have creatures; if you don't have creatures, you're probably doing something just as broken. When it 'works' the other person can't play Magic.

Wildfire(s) are less powerful than Upheaval because they don't scale - if they have 8 lands in play and you draw Wildfire, they still have a decent board - and the more powerful 5- and 6-mana threats usually live through it. Upheaval undoes all progress made in the game and restarts it on your terms.

 

[Cultic Cube]

This is great -- thanks for the explanation about Wildfire and Opposition. I've actually only ever run Oppo in a GU shell with mana dorks and ideally Awakening Zone. It never occurred to me to just stick it in any creature deck or even in WU tokens, as Kirblinx did in a deck he drafted on my CubeTutor (thanks, Kirblinx!). Makes good sense.

If I might ask about a few other cards: Do you all find Mindslaver to be fair enough? When it comes together it feels pretty degenerate, but to really go off with it usually requires mana and probably three-ish combo pieces.

Also, any opinions on Mimic Vat? That's often a card the winds up feeling unfair. It requires some mana, some set up (though "creatures dying" isn't a high bar to meet), and it only goes off once per turn cycle baring untapping effects, but its effect does scale throughout the game, and like 90% of creatures in the cube are, of course, amazing fodder for Vat.

 

[sigh]

Mindslaver and Mimic Vat seem fairly tame and manageable at your overall power level. Wouldn't be in a super big rush to remove them; unless you've experienced some issues with them in your group?

To your point #3 above, I enjoy lots of artifacts so I don't necessarily see any problem with how many you have, but you do have a lot of mana rocks. Star Compass is digging quite deep for instance, and Worn Powerstone is very... powerful. But on the flip side, you run basically every green 1 drop mana dork O_o. I could easily place these as two reasons for agro being under-represented in the format: your ramp for both blue and green based decks looks incredible.

I think to give life to agro without disrupting the power structure you are working on would be difficult. I probably wouldn't devote much more space to agro, as you'd quickly start eating into archetype space for a deck you say you all aren't very interested in anyway. At most I'd say you can improve the efficacy of several low drop slots, like:

Are some I can see that seem nominally aggressive, but don't really look efficient in agro, or might actually be better in midrange decks (High Priest). I also see what looks like quite a bit of support for an aristocrats deck, but rather splintered sacrifice fuel throughout Mardu.
I think Flesh Carver is fine for your power level and gives the concept quite a boost.

 

[Cultic Cube]

Hello again! I have completed a big summer revision to the cube (42 changes to the 360). http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/77247 Here are the overarching goals that were the impetus for the edits:

• Remove biggest power spikes and/or mandatory p1p1's: Upheaval, Opposition, Balance, Sulfuric Vortex, Consecrated Sphinx, Grave Titan, Inferno Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Inkwell Leviathan, Skullclamp, and Coercive Portal.
• Nerf Artifacts, which had been an oppressive deck: Kill Inkwell Leviathan, Tinker; weaken mana rocks a bit.
• Remove low impact cards, especially those that have intensive color requirements at low CMC (e.g. Precinct Captain, Harbinger of the Tides).
• Make White more impressive; deemphasize cards that support an aggressive white strategy, which doesn't actually exist.

Following are some open questions for me, which I would appreciate any thoughts on:

• Is Channel degenerately powerful in the new meta? I feel as if it is enough weaker than a Green equivalent to Tinker such as Natural Order that it is ok, but that is certainly not a given.
• Does Entomb do enough to warrant inclusion? (I hope so!)
• We are testing a few new expensive artifacts: God-Pharaoh's Gift and Helm of the Host. How do these fare in the meta? It's worth noting that these both play in a similar design space as Mimic Vat, so it is extremely likely that if we keep any of these in the cube in future revisions, it should only be one of these three, or perhaps two.

This revision has shuffled around archetypes a bit, and it has created more space for some archetypes that simply were not powerful enough in the last meta:

• Artifacts is significantly weakened, but it is still a viable strategy. Tinker is a big loss, but it still has access to Goblin Welder and Daretti, Scrap Savant; and it has gained access to Kuldotha Forgemaster and Entomb. Also, Mindslaver is still here to be built around.
• Mono-White midrange is a viable strategy now, if not a tier one strategy.
• Mono-Black Control has never really been a thing, and if anything, it is probably worse now.
• Birthing Pod is, I'm pleased to say, at last actually viable. It's probably not tier one, but at least one can more comfortably build around the card when one has access to multiple copies of it by virtue of the additions of Enlightened Tutor and Demonic Tutor. (The latter replaces Diabolic Tutor.)
• UW(x) Blink is viable again.
• Mono-red aggro absolutely remains a thing that one can do, even though losing Sulfuric Vortex hurts.
• I hope to have extended Spells Matter into White a bit with Monastery Mentor. (I tested Seeker of the Way, but he felt under-powered.)
• I also hope to have given Red more Aristocrats tools, particularly with Goblin Bombardment.
• Green has not much changed.