The Dandy Cube (Chris Taylor's Cube)

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Alright, drafted! Most of the changes I made were just adding cards that spark joy, so there's a bunch of random ideas in here now.

Here's the actual takeaways from the night:
055 - Flameshell Mystic.jpg
This card had been in my cube since strixhaven came out (You can tell I cynically believed ward wasn't going to stay around design wise. Hexproof from Color burned me before)
So yeah, sedgemoor witch does probably need the "nerf" of being black :p

Also as a litmus test someone did draft actual factual mono-red, and went 3-1.


This card is straight gasoline! The tokens are grounded, but it's resilient and you get to draw cards when the tokens die occasionally.
It did however deck the person who drafted it many times, though he admits he may have been leaning on booster tutor a bit too hard and probably needed more win conditions.

07 Sarkhan Voice of Dragons.png
This card was also excellent. It was basically splashed as the only green card in a pretty nutty BR aristocrats deck, but performed admirably.
It is a scaled down and colorshifted sarkhan the mad, but that card is old and nobody knows it so it was referred to as "Oko Bob" all night :p

That deck also contained these:
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And while yes, that is a bit insane but it raises the good point where these all work slightly differently in a deck already overloaded with lines and moving parts. While it is, strictly speaking more interesting that there's variety in the recursive creatures you can get, this deck is already so complicated.

I might go to a 2/2 split, but realistically I'm probably just going to go back to quad bloodsoaked champion.

07 Chain Reckoning.png
This also got suggested to my by Safra, and it should probably exile the card it flashes back, but I wanted to at least try it unedited.
I'm not sure it's actually that strong in my environment, but it was really beloved by Safra's drafters.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Alright, another cube night another 18 lines of edits/feedback/notes

Here's all the new customs added in this patch:
High level: Naya +1/+1 counters became Naya tokens, partially because a tokens deck could hypothetically stand up to a stiff breeze of interaction, partially because it would play well with the nearby themes of Prowess and Aristocrats, and partially because I really love it when Esika's Chariot makes anything other than the tokens it came with, but especially when it makes a blood token.

There is some push and pull with that desire. I've always been a bit frustrated that my green section makes bears, wolves, and cats that are all 2/2s but TECHNICALLY are different and as such necessitate different tokens.

We did have someone draft Naya tokens, and given the pile of tokens she had was comparable in size to her maindeck, I can probably do some trimming around the edges. Ranger Class can probably make a bear and not ruin magic.

I also took a gander at my interaction suite, and both normalized and redistributed how much each color gets. It was in a place where black/red had ~26 and white had 10, but now things are more evenly balanced. Even managed to sneak some into green (Shoutout to Dom for showing me Primal Might, a card I had previously assumed was beneath me. I'm giving it a shot.)

Here's some new hits:
01 Event Horizon.png01 Journeys End.png02 Cosmic Sinkhole.png02 Cursory Glance.png03 Dark Whispers.png03 Empty Soulcatcher.png04 Fleshmelter.png
Most of these are from MSEModern, I've included designer credit next to the rarity in the bottom left just in case.

Individual Notes:
05 Shapecaller.png
This card is interesting, but was emergency changed to say "non-spirit".
If you can copy this card with something like Heat Shimmer (Look it's fable of the mirror breaker, but there's other ways to do this) and then use this card to copy the copy, only the Shimmer copy goes away at end of turn, since the sacrifice is tied to the ability, not the token.

So step 1: copy Shapecaller with Fable
step 2: copy temp Shapecaller with Permanent Shapecaller

Every untap step from here on out doubles your number of Shapecallers, if you want it to.


This card blows so hard. I talk so much shit about delver of secrets but at least delver has a chance of becoming a relevant game piece.

01 Parish Paragon.png
This is also a straight take from MSE modern, and is kinda just...too much? I'm not even sure I buy the damage redirection as a downside in other contexts like the more removal heavy constructed, and it's really easy for this to be big, and not impossible to make it gigantic. I picked it as basically a psudo-benevolent bodyguard that could occasionally attack people and it was mostly just the abyss.

04 Get Em Boys.png
Old text: "those tokens gain haste until end of turn", so now it can occasionally send in a young pyromancer elemental or a golem if you're lucky. I've added as second copy as Tokens, Prowess and Aristocrats like this card a lot.


This card does things I like: I like converting non "useful" tokens into creatures, and it's a lot easier to make a pile of treasures than it is a pile of 4/4s.
However, it's a bit too commander. 4/4 is just HUGE in a normal game of magic, and as a result you feel bad playing this as a 3 drop or 5 drop, because it has to be balanced around games where 4/4s are just okay.
The easy fix is it makes a 3/3 instead of a food, but I'm exploring other options.

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I like Bloodtithe Harvester but I don't think it makes the cut for me as a multicolor card, so I made a weird little Heartfire Immolator mashup (another card that isn't quite there for me)

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This is an artifact now! It probably always should have been, Servo Skulls certainly would be in 40k, but it is implying a sort of cross polination between Aristocrats and Artifacts that isn't really there.
The Artifacts deck wants to grind you down with planeswalkers or crash through with Karnstructs, not putting gravecrawlers or Scrapheap Scroungers to dig back up.

More thoughts to come tomorrow
 

Dom Harvey

Contributor
The Shapecaller combos sound pretty cool to me and a goal worth chasing - if someone gets to pair a transformed Fable with it, more power to them IMO. There's enough removal in the format to keep that in check and it's not a Twin-style infinite combo that officially ends the game on the spot if I understand it right
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
The Shapecaller combos sound pretty cool to me and a goal worth chasing - if someone gets to pair a transformed Fable with it, more power to them IMO. There's enough removal in the format to keep that in check and it's not a Twin-style infinite combo that officially ends the game on the spot if I understand it right
I don't love it mostly because most non-judge people at my table didn't know this interaction (myself included)
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
So I wasn't actually joking about that whole green prowess thing....

Preface
So my cube (up until this latest patch) ran the following archetypes:
{B}{U}{G} Graveyard
{W}{U}{B} Artifacts
{G}{W}{R} Tokens
{U}{W}{R} Prowess
{B}{R}{G} Aristocrats

The goal is, for a given three color archetype, that you should be able to draft a functional 2 color deck in any of the combinations, or a functional deck playing all 3.

So for eg, You should be able to draft a functional {U}{W}, {U}{B}, {B}{W}, or Esper Artifacts deck
Of course "functional" is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence, but the intent is clear.

The more midrange archetypes (Artifacts and Graveyard) are pretty uncommonly two color, especially with how my fixing is (Triple Dual Triple Fetch plus some misc), but most 3 color decks are base 2 colors with a splash, rather than a truly even split, so we can still consider how each color pair is doing.

How are they doing?

{B}{U}{G} Graveyard
-Blue Green could use some work, but I've also seen so few people try it. UB is honestly not that bad, leaning control with the ability to rebuy key win conditions.
Worth noting that blue weirdly does the least self mill of these 3 with my current configuration.

{W}{U}{B} Artifacts
All three of these are fine and strong. BW is leaning heavily on some of my custom cards (see below) but you can generally make a large number of clues/thopters/treasures and turn that into a way to kill someone.
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Again this deck is mostly 3 color.

{G}{W}{R} Tokens
It's still early days for this archetype, but I've seen GW and Naya perform well, and I've seen enough RW/GR decks leaning on pure card quality with light tokens themes that I'm optimistic. Fable of the Mirror Breaker is a hell of a card.

{U}{W}{R} Prowess
UR and WR have been solid, but UW lacks the finishing power the other builds do. It feels like you're combining the support colors together, and while exactly monastery mentor is strong, there's not much to draw you into this specific color combination.
Feels more like where you end up, rather than where you set out for.

{B}{R}{G} Aristocrats
Hoo boy. This archetype has been an issue for me for a while now.
Black Red is fine, great even. Goblin Bombardment is the best possible sac outlet, and black provides the best possible food to feed it.
This is the whole basis for the archetype, so to push it into three colors like I'm doing here is overdesigning, but I'm so close to the structure I outlined above so I want to try.

So what does an aristocrats deck without black even look like? Let alone the red green one I've shoehorned in here?

While technically you can fling a pile of saprolings at an opponent with Spiteful Prankster in play, I don't think anyone's ever done it.
You should be able to use token spells from green where you use recursive black creatures, but since creatures tokens (regrettably) can block, they're priced a lot higher up the curve than your average gravecrawler, and because they're green they tend to be larger, single tokens rather than a spread number of 1/1s. (Mostly)

Also bloody every creature death payoff and their mother says nontoken:

I get why, they'd have to be different rates, but there's just so little to work with.
You want a payoff? You get Fecundity, a card you'd board out in a few matchups.

I can change these things, but it can be difficult to do that much heavy lifting.

The Change

All right, all that whinging aside, here's what I'm actually doing:

Aristocrats: {G}{B}{R} --> {W}{B}{R}
I've tried Mardu Aristocrats before, and while it's hard to articulate my thoughts on exactly why, white seems to fit better than green. This probably shouldn't be the case, all the token/dies cards I'm leveraging from green should likewise be found in white, but Black White has worked better for me in the past, and does feel like the more natural direction to take this archetype.
Perhaps it's the anthems, overrun hasn't really been a favorite of mine.

Red White is probably on balance as awkward an aristocrats deck as red green is, but black white is an upgrade on black green.

Prowess: {U}{W}{R} --> {U}{R}{G}
Here's where it gets weird. Blue and Red are so naturally spells matter colors that some cube podcasts derisively refer to blue red spells decks as "not an archetype, just what the color pie does".
GREEN on the other hand, has the least noncreature cards per capita of any color. A bold choice for the "cast noncreature spells" archetype.
So hey, I've got the exact same problem but I've moved it from one archetype to another. Progress!

Weather this problem is harder or easier to fix than the above: it's a different problem, which means I can jam fresh ideas at it.

On balance: {U}{R} is unchanged, {U}{G} probably has the same problems as {U}{W} does but might have a linear angle to it that looks interesting to explore, and {R}{G} is probably worse than {R}{W} prowess was just because green isn't as aggressive a color as white is.

Casualties
There's a few cards I'll miss:
1659805066902.png
Birthing Pod was in as a GB sacrifice angle, but my cube isn't jammed full of ETB creatures as you'd think so they were baseline worse.
I do genuinely adore Baba Lysaga, Night Witch but I think she requires a bit too much on top of your deck just being able to sac 3 permanents. Great for EDH, but if you like this card just play Priest of Forgotten Gods (Which I am)

Other than these a lot of the cards I liked can actually stay as part of the tokens archetype or just general sweet things.

Gains
Alright time to talk about the weird shit :D
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For everyone who's been excited to see what I'd do with this scroll mechanic I brainstormed back in the day well, the first design I've added in a while came from one of my drafters :p
I think this card is an interesting take on Curse of Predation. You're limited on how many counters you can get out of it in a given turn, but you can apply them strategically and save up spells triggers as necessary.
Also most of my brainstorming about scrolls has been of the "ETB draw a card" variety, which generally means those cards need to be bad (see learn). Providing another way to get the scrolls means this can be costed somewhat more aggressively.

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This forms the basis of the "more linear" blue green deck I'm envisioning. Hopefully I can get this deck to where it's interesting to play against a more controlling deck and not a 90-10 matchup in one direction or another.

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#Text
And yes, I understand when WotC makes cards like this for arena, they don't bother explaining what naturalize does because you can mouseover and see the card beside it. I don't have that luxury, which leads to this book.
If this ends up being underpowered, I can see switching "ETB" to "ETB or Dies", but I'll test it here since all the options here gain you a card, even if they're conditional.
If the scroll is a literal copy of an existing card, I'm keeping the art the same for now. I don't run any of these cards in my list, and the border should be a good enough differentiator.

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The OG scroll card is back! Card plays surprisingly well, always happy to have another reach creature running around the environment.
Also I love that the art for Skyshroud Packleader is just a zoom in of the art for Summon golem.
Ideally all my Scroll arts would relate to each other like this, but that's hard to get.


This is what I came up with for a {G}{R} prowess signal for the multicolor section. My gut tells me I want a payoff, not an enabler here, but it's worth a shot.
Also I worry too many relevant cards just cost 1 anyways?

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I still despise how this mana cost looks, but I'll admit they play extremely well. It's possible this should be Kalamax, the Stormsire for simplicity, but I won't pretend there aren't gains here either.

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I like the idea of Bastion of Rememberance, but enchantment removal is few and far between in my cube so it's a touch more "emblem-y" than I'd like for a card that applies pressure like this does.
That's a touch more defensible in a multicolor slot, especially when it's a draw to a less played color combination.

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I'll freely admit the leyline of anticipation text is on there purely for fun, but I think if there's a color combination that can leverage that it would be {U}{G}.
If this needs buffs, I could make the scrolls 1 mana, or for maximum possible spice just let them trigger off any spell.
This basically gives you infinite surges as long as this creature is in play, but maybe that's what a UG tempo deck needs in my environment.
 
Berserk is the way and the light. So stoked for your green prowess lists. Also, I'll be borrowing that "End of Days" wrath/clysm. VERY cool. Looking forward to naming Artifact, Planeswalker, World...
 
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Chris Taylor

Contributor
Berserk is the way and the light. So stoked for your green prowess lists. Also, I'll be borrowing that "End of Days" wrath/clysm. VERY cool. Looking forward to naming Artifact, Planeswalker, World...
End of Days is one of my format's A's by the way. Naming artifact and just plague winding for 5 is insane, Naming walker and having Planar Cleansing meets duneblast is insane, and having the backup option of (I think you need to name tribal) and having a real honest to god everything dies sweeper is a ludirious floor for a card with this kind of ceiling.

Similary misc notes: Delayed Blast Fireball is completely fucked.

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Alright lets talk about my new friend here: Gravecrawler but bad.

Vile Rusalka here came about because of two notes I've gotten a lot about my aristocrats deck:
1) Aristocrats decks having such easy access to 2/1s for 1 formed the basis for an already solid aggressive core.
2) Bloodsoaked Champion (My previous recursive beater of choice) returns to play for the frustratingly high price of 2 mana, making synergistic loops less feasible in aggro decks with low land counts.

Aggro has always been at the forefront of my format. I'm an aggressive player by nature, I love the decision making aggro games have, I love the passive effects a good aggro deck has on player deckbuilding, 10/10, no notes.

In trying to balance my favorite archetype with the rest of them, I need to take active steps. Left unchecked I will just keep adding aggro cards until even blue white is playing 2/1s for 1 (Yes I've done this before), and that's just not interesting.

Recently I've cut the shocklands from my cube and replaced them with more duals in order to boost the average player's starting life total.
There's also fewer 1 drops in general, and more of them are mana sink or utility cards like Figure of Destiny, Carrion Feeder, or Siren Stormtamer that don't contribute as much to players dying on turn 4. I don't run the extremely powerful ones like Goblin Guide or Ragavan either.

However, you need a certain density of synergy pieces in order for a deck to function, so (At time of writing) 4/6 of the black 1 drops I ran where 2/1s for 1, and no other color had that luxury. Twice as many as white, and Red had one arguable 2 power 1 drop.

The obvious answer to point 2 is why not just run actual gravecrawler, and I did for many years. The frustrating thing about gravecrawler design wise is that it has a feedback loop which makes deckbuilding really boring: the best thing to add to your deck to make sure you can cast your gravecrawlers from your graveyard is more copies of gravecrawler.

There are other zombies, but almost exclusively in black, as there's ~75 nonblack zombies in magic at time of writing. (Yes I can make more, but it's difficult to make those cards feel like real magic cards and it's really constraining on both art and design. Not every card makes sense anymore with a zombie sticker slapped on it.)
At its worst, the aristocrats deck can be really insular, and gravecrawler doubles down on that in a big way.

Unfortunately, as we found out last night: a 1/1 menace is just not worth a card.

What's more, zero of these (four copies, remember) were ever returned to play across all matches last draft. Nobody was ever able to deal 3 and recast one. They also died a lot less on account of being very ignorable, and hard to block in the first place.

So yeah, be extremely wary of any recursive creature that doesn't have 2 power. (I'm also cutting Nether Traitor btw)


Next project: There's still an actual metric ton of tokens in my cube, and there's 133 (Basically an all time high) number of custom cards in my cube, and I'd love to see both those numbers lower, even if there's some tension.
Some of the recent custom cards I've added are to consolidate the tokens my cube makes, so for eg, I ran these two
1660048177954.png
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Which are small edits of Esika's Chariot and Ranger class to make 2/2 bear tokens.

These are small changes, but there's a complexity cost to every custom and complicated card I run, and I've been ignoring that for a while now.

Oh and Tarmogoyf is the best green prowess creature.
 
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Chris Taylor

Contributor
More notes from the draft tables! Dom joined us again (always a joy) and I think we had the stress-test "what if only one person at the table drafted anything resembling control" deck.
@safra has (passively or not) encouraged me to allow a bit more "unfair" magic into my cube, so while I don't think splinter twin or storm is taking any steps near my cube, I've added a few things I've shied away from in the past for their ability to....sidestep a boardstate.

Achievements unlocked this past draft:
-Deal 20 damage with a single attacking creature (Berserk + Vines of Vastwood)
-Mind Sculpt someone with a Shark Typhoon in play
-Recur the same creature with Lurrus, Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants and Grapple with the Past on back to back turns.
-Play Marionette Master, equip a Nettlecyst to it, and sac your board (We didn't even count this one up, grats Dom)
-Escape Uro at instant speed and block.

Card Specific Notes:
003 - Champion of the Wastes.jpg
I made this card to be an adeline sidegrade and it shows. I think Brimaz, King of Oreskos is probably a better fit for my environment.
Why do both it and the tokens it makes have flying? But yeah boltable so it's literally unplayable :rolleyes:

112 - Wavesurger.jpg
This is the aformentioned card that let one of our drafters ambush an attacker with Uro.
Vedalken Orrery has never been close to a playable magic card, and Yeva is extremely middling? I agree with my drafters when they say the "everything has flash" text is probably the most annoying and least necessary part of the card.
I do think the experiment of "Whenever you cast an instant/sorcery, draw an instant" Archmage Antonidas style is best put here on a UG card.

If you're going to put powerful effects you're worried about on a multicolor card, the least you can do is put them on less drafted color combinations so they don't just feed into making the best version of a deck better :p
101 - Dreamweaver.jpg
Being adorably oldschool, this card is not a may, so it ended up bouncing a wall of omens.
This was mostly a filler card anyways, but I can probably afford the quality of life here :p


I am slightly more encouraged about this card when someone pointed out you can hold up a fetchland and regrow it at EoT, but it's still probably not all that great


The jury remains out unfortunately. I did draft it, cast it 3 times, but it resolved once and Dom combo killed me immediately after :p
Also I do hate that this is another unique tokens for my cube but not enough to make a custom version (yet).
Let alone the necron tokens


This also seems unnecessary? Love me some opt in domain but even the total package is a bit uninspiring here.
Leyline binding on the other hand was excellent and was frequently cast for 1-2 mana


I think it's probably gonna take me killing someone with this for any of my drafters to take it seriously.


This card is almost certainly more cute than good, but I did get to assemble this + Jinnie Fay a few times.
Shame it can only target creatures, I'd love to copy a clue.
Kinda reverse impulse draw: you can draw a card permanently for 2 mana but you have to do it now :p


Ugh why are these monks red, I don't even run monastery mentor anymore.

Edit: Also a lot of the artifact synergy cards are blue 4s so I guess CML taught me nothing all these years
 
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Chris Taylor

Contributor
Drafted my cube again! I feel a bit bad for the owner of our playgroup's vintage cube, it's been a while but people just like combo gameplay less?

My friend rob hasn't lost a game in the last 2 drafts, this time drafting an excellent prowess deck in a pool where not a ton of removal was opened :p
Excellent games resulted however, as he regularly ended games at BOTH under 5 life and under 5 cards in library, including one game at literal 1 life. Clearly he was very happy I've opted for full sets of alpha duals instead of a mix of duals and shocks as previous :p

It kinda makes me wonder if I need more copies/alt versions of refine the mind (what if this was a green card and did something different, for eg) or to buff the one existing copy

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Notes:

Guess which one of these I cut for being bad and which one I added because I thought it would be good. Go on guess.
Look electrostatic infantry is probably a fine card, but if there's one ethos my cube runs on it's "It's good, but it could be better"
Well I'll look to do better here!

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I added this card because I wanted the token changing ability of Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer on something that wasn't a 6 drop in misleading colors for my cube.
And then I put this in my aristocrats deck and noticed I've probably gone too far? I'm not sure anyone's even used the improvise yet.
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I've doubled up on Ledger Shredder this patch for more blue attacking creatures that fuel the graveyard, so I've also added this gem from @blacksmithy to go along with them.
I'd already removed "ETB: Surveil 1" from his text, and based on feedback I'm thinking this should only return itself when you double spell, otherwise it gets really restrictive on what your opponent is doing (especially being an X/X)
Also weirdly an aristocrats creature? I could make this ETB tapped if it proves too defensively powerful, but I'll hold for now.
My deck this week was extremely awkward, so I'd like more data before I make that change.
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I think my playgroup is becoming sick of Laelia. I know I'm trying to let existing cards be rather than make arguably small changes like this in order to keep the spirit of the card in, but the 2nd best red draw engine 3 drop is like...hang on....
?
I have no idea, but these are all really different cards.

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Pop quiz: what happens if you Red Sun's Zenith a Grist, the Hunger Tide? (Hint, it's different than what happens if you scorching dragonfire it :p)
I'd originally borrowed the text from Lava Coil for this card, so it did not exile planeswalkers, so I've now opted for "permanent", hopefully future proofing it against other weird shit :p

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Another card from MSE Modern I found that I'm excited to try. It wasn't in the drafted portion this time sadly.

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In the spirit of "It's fine, but it could be better" here's my middle ground between Blossoming Defense, Vines of Vastwood and...wild shape I guess?
Wording borrowed from Kaya's Guile, so yes entwine really does work like that sometimes.
 

Dom Harvey

Contributor
The Laelia point got me thinking: when the Cube has so many format-defining custom cards, how do you want the 'top shelf' cards to be distributed between 'real'/custom?
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Good Question. I know my old answer was a coincidental zero, but I'm certainly more open to the top cards being my small edits of an existing magic card than something wholly I'd created. I certainly have less work hours put into quality control than WotC does, but I'm not sure that matters in a context where I iterate as much as I tend to.
Maybe I've been "afraid" for nothing?

At a brisk pass, here's custom cards I could be convinced were one of my format's As:
004 - Champion of the Wastes.jpg008 - End of Days.jpg028 - Refine the Mind.jpg041 - Karn the Corrupted.jpg095 - Kheru Master Lich.jpg096 - Laerryn Architect Arcane.jpg

Those last two are perhaps somewhat dubious, as the least important part of any reactive deck is the finisher, but the power level might be there.
Also Champion is to Adeline, Resplendent Cathar as Lava Bearer (above) is to Laelia, so I guess this makes sense. I'm not sure of the actual total number of As in my cube (especially with the stated goal of synergy decks, so goblin bombardment is maybe a synergy A, but does that count here?) but this feels low.

Any of my cantrips are certainly important cards, but I'm not sure they're really "top shelf", and I don't think I've made any removal spells that are really swords to plowshares level good.

My custom count is 118 at time of writing, so I can at least say "Of the custom cards I've added, a very small percentage of them are format defining cards", which is not the actual question, but I'm not confidant enough in my player hat to judge what cards are As and weather this is a large percentage of them.
 
Yeah, it's nice to see that the dandy cards had their finger on the pulse of a button! Cuz they always looked neat, but also strong, and I couldn't assess if they were *too* strong, cuz all the cards I owned at the time were at a sub-Grillo power level.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Well I've got one draft with the BRO additions under my belt so it's time for more wild swings!

One little pocket synergy I've appreciated for a while is Epochrasite into Flickerwisp, turning the bugger into a 4/4. It's not gamebreaking, it's not even necessarily worth drafting around and it's hardly a whole deck, but it does come up occasionally.
I don't run a full on flicker deck like some people do, but BRO has introduced some new ways to get value above expectation for your ephemerates (A card I am not running, to be clear)

All the prototype cards reset to their full size modes when you flicker them, and given I'm on esper artifacts in the first place, I've added these 3:

Regrettably, Steel Seraph is an angel, and thus can't be upgraded by restoration angel due to how that trigger is worded (Made that mistake at least once) but flickerwisp still works. It still amazes me just how much play that card still has despite being almost 15 years old.

Alongside other solid flicker targets like blade and master splicer, you've got a neat little mini package. I actually ended up drafting mono white (In a cube with triple fetch triple alpha dual) by not committing to a second color far too late.
It worked out though, I went 2-1 and my deck had a single interactive spell (and the world's saddest prismatic ending in my sideboard :p).

Steel Seraph is really solid. I underestimated how good a 3/3 flier for 3 was, and this regularly gained me 12+ life in a game when blocking wasn't relevant, or let me block when it was. My entire deck had flying, but that's the keyword I need the least encouragement on, so knowing the other two are also punching above their weight class is great.
AND you can cast it for 6! Love this thing.

I'm going over the prototype list and seeing if there's any I was on the fence for, given how nice these have felt.
Arcane Proxy seems like a fake answer, given you won't actually get it's ETB if you flicker it, and I'm not in love with the card in the first place.
Combat Thresher seems like the least helpful place to put something like this. I don't love elvish visionaries, and I don't need more 3s.
Hulking Metamorph and Woodcaller Automaton seem WAY too swingy if you flicker them, and I'm not huge on adding a random artifact creature to green in the first place, even if it is 2 3/3s for 4.

I think that's the second monocolor deck my cube has ever produced in the last decade. Feels weird.

Other notes:
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I love the play of these two cards, but man.
Usher makes human WARRIOR tokens, Resto makes colorless spirits, and the specific printing of Usher I have (because I love the frame) doesn't explain what boast does.
BUT they both have great play patterns so I'm almost priced into keeping them in. Let me tell ya, there's no way a custom DFC Saga is the right place to spend complexity budget for the sake of 1 token.


Siege veteran is a fine 3. If you've played with luminarch aspirant (and if you haven't please do, it's powerful but OH MAN the gameplay is just stellar!) you know this effect is worth it's weight. I remain convinced that "We've got luminarch aspirant at home" is still a fine magic card. You could also go with Sparring Regimen if you wanted something more agressively slanted, but I don't think I want to keep vet since this gameplay is something you can put on a 2 drop instead, and 3s are always so crowded (Magic's current intersection between "cheap enough to cast, expensive enough we can give it the juice")

So if I'm not playing siege vet, there's only one other card making the artifact soldier tokens, and while noncreature young pyromancer over here is fine, it's also a duplication of an effect I'm already doubling up on in red, and I'm not sure I want that much homogenization.

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This card was only meant to make 1 growth scroll per creature that connected, but I tripped over myself writing the card down and someone made 6 one combat step :p

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This thing is a REAL good fiend hunter. Maybe it needs crew 3, maybe it needs to be something else, IDK yet.

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Forgot to write "once each turn" on this one....

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This either needs to be sorcery speed or say nonbeast, probably the latter.
It is also one of a few green Aristocrats payoffs, but it's also real good at turning bloods/clues into damage, so I think it can stay for now.


MAN why can populate only copy creature tokens?
Like sure, they weren't exactly going hogwild with clues and treasures back when this was introduced, but it's always a bit weird to find them putting in EXTRA words to make a mechanic 0.00000001% worse.
Esika's Chariot can copy noncreature tokens, and that's space I want to explore more, so this probably gets a custom.


I also experimented with some different sac outlets this time around. Alter I've added after seeing it perform so admirably in @Dom Harvey 's cube (He nearly combo killed me between Saffi Eriksdotter and Gyruda, Doom of Depths), and it's added a sweet dimension to the aristocrats deck.
Blasting Station is certainly worse than goblin bombardment but in a way that makes the game more interesting, as opposed to Makeshift Munitions which is mostly just "oh I can't do the thing I want to".
Also the fact blasting station untaps when your opponent plays a creature is growing on me. That there's a way to sac multiple things on your opponents turn sometimes is more cool than gotcha, at least for now.

048 - Vile Rusalka.jpg
I might be going back on my opinion on our custom gravecrawler here.
It has been doing it's job: when you're going, you're FUCKIN GOING rattling off sacs for 1 mana gunning down your opponents board like a Koth emblem aint nothin.
But 3 damage is a lot, and it 100% shouldn't be 2 so you can't just attack on T2 being like "block me. I dare you"

It feels weird accomplishing everything this design set out to do and then deciding against that end goal, but it might be the right call.
Also double blood artist double bloodghast is probably too much regardless of this thing's text box :p
 
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