General The Draft Exchange

Aston

Aston

Drafted the contest cube

R/W Tokens from CubeTutor.com












First picked Goblin Bombardment and got some sweet things to go along with it. Assemble the Legion seems pretty bonkers with it. I'm not in love with the bouncelands as fixing in this deck but I had to make do.
 
sigh

sigh

Drafted StormEntity's cube. Aaaaah! I died and ascended while drafting this. The Molten Vortex engine deck! Supported with broken singleton! Wowowow. This was a fun draft, and I had a super great time crafting my deck plan. I saw a Molten Vortex along with a loam, decided that I had to Do It (tm) and picked that up, hoping that the Loam would wheel. Picked up a Tilling Treefolk, Loam didn't wheel, was sad. Then pack two, another Vortex??? And then a Loam?!?! I was a very happy sigh. While all of that was happening, I picked a speculative Eidolon of Blossoms.... right into a second one. SO the deck ended up with a dual card advantage engine of Eidolon Enchantress and Loam land recursion, for powering out crippling vortex beats ASAP. I. Love. It. :D

Here it is!

RG LIFE FROM THE MOLTEN BLOSSOMS ENGINE from CubeTutor.com










 
StormEntity

StormEntity

Drafted Safra's Contest Cube. I can literally never resist, so I slammed Dark Confidant P1P1. P1P2 was a tough choice between Alesha and Kolaghan's Command, with a Dreadbore also in the pack. Decided to make the more interesting choice and take Alesha, trying to wheel one of the gold cards. Disciple of Bolas made a fun add to the pile--I'll definitely be adding this one to my cube in an upcoming update. When the Dreadbore came back I ended up taking a Stromkirk Occultist instead. I already want to be discarding things for Alesha purposes, and I have a Magus of the Wheel and Cryptbreaker to that end. Pack 2 led me deep down the Alesha rabbit hole with Murderous Redcap, Mogg War Marshal, and Crater Elemental (this one is a great inclusion by the way) leading the way. Pack 3 reinforced the plan with Feldon and a pile of utility cards for the deck. Here's where I ended up:

Recursive Alesha Explored from CubeTutor.com










I really like the deck and enjoyed drafting the cube. It's rare that I go so in on a synergy plan, but Alesha made me a promise of sweet, sweet value and the cube really delivered on that. For some feedback: I'm thrilled to see that Solemn Simulacrum and Unearth are also in the cube, since I'd have really liked to have them in this deck but didn't see them in the draft. One card I'm slamming in my cube when I do add Alesha and Feldon (as I intend to do soon) is Filigree Familiar, since it goes with the little creatures plan and synergizes well with Welder. You might also want to look at Order of Whiteclay, Recruiter of the Guard, or Collected Company, since they fuel this deck well in other colors. They might be a little off in terms of power level on either side though.
 
sigh

sigh

Drafted the (now) Experiment 3.2. Had to give myself a warm up run through prior, ended up predictably messy. This one started solid and stayed strong with a first pick Noble Heirarch into Resto. Seems like the deck can generate some pretty decent value if needed :). Was a fun cube to draft through. Liked seeing some neato cards like Resurrection. Brave the Elements seems like an interesting choice over some of the targeted versions. There didn't seem like there were many counter spells when I did my warm up, and looking at the list it seems like there aren't many, rounding out at 10 (including creature-counters). Conscious decision?

sigh's Bant value from CubeTutor.com










 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

balance doesn't count enchantments in play, so if you can empty your hand by playing seals then you get to mind twist your opponent more. seals are some form of removal so if they have anything to recover with you're already ahead.
 
StormEntity

StormEntity

Kirblinx's signature convinced me to give the Riptide Community Battlecruiser Cube a try. First picked Dimir Aqueduct so as to avoid a gold card and lived to regret it (classic lands being parasitic). Ended up moving in on Constellation, which is a fun theme for such a slow cube. Meren and Whip seem like fun engines to play together too. I think this cube definitely has an interesting take on the ole Non-Blue Control deck, you can really durdle hard in BG.

BGw Meren from CubeTutor.com












Of note! This cube needs someone to add its last four cards so that it can be finished finally. Someone should really head on over to the thread and make an awesome last 4 suggestions.
 
Mad Prophet

Mad Prophet

POD from CubeTutor.com










Leyline Angler and Root-Maze Enchantress are the customs.​
I First picked Abandoned Clearing. These seem very powerful. I have long played with fetchable Theros temples, and this seems even stronger. Second picked Eldritch Evolution because I literally couldn't help myself. Then proceeded to roll right into this sweet GBu pod deck because I literally can't help myself. Toolboxes are sweet. And Pod is extra sweet. I usually end up dissapointed when I try and draft pod but I found it to be pleasantly well supported here. Skaab Ruinator is an exciting payoff card for Pod and Eldritch Evolution.​
This cube contained Too Many Lands for my tastes, but if we're going to play dual lands, I may prefer 80 lands to 40.. I often felt like I was supposed to slam the land over some sweet spell, but I was never worried that my mana wouldn't come together at all. One thing I do appreciate about the fetch-dual manabase:​
And dual lands let you play lots of 'em...​
​
Next can draft NoLands or Brushwagg cubeyou don't want to do this.​
 
psly4mne

psly4mne

I tried a couple drafts of NoLands. It looks like a really interesting format that I would love to play, but I also have no idea how to draft it.

My first attempt ended up in U/G with a Lab Maniac plan (with Mirror-Mad + Shapesharer for an instant mill) and some interesting synergies.

GU Treefolk? from CubeTutor.com













My second went monoblack aggro with Korlash and Gray Merchant for monocolor payoff.

Monoblack Devotion from CubeTutor.com











 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Thats miles better than what I was getting. I had to toss both drafts back, as I got unplayable piles. Fixing seems to be a real struggle, and packs feel small due to density of virtual non-picks due to the wide power level, bad fixing that further narrows choices (its 67 lands total!), and lots of parasitic picks. In addition, you get to contend with the the same tremendous narrowing effect on your removal choices due to the tremendous variance in quality. Getting 23 playables and a mana base felt like more of a struggle than drafting desert cube variants. It feels like you're drafting 8 card packs. I suppose it would be better to just go all out aggression in two colors, as that seems to broaden the pool of reasonable picks.

There seems to have been no thought put into fixing ratios or the removal asfan as well. Its literally just a pile of cards, with no thematic connection or thought behind them, other than that they saw pro tour play. There is no way this could actually function as a format.

I ran across these gems, besides the illusions and donate that also shouldn't be there.



I realize I sound like a jerk here, but when you start charging money for a product, that changes everything. and there could not possible have been any care or thought put into this environment if you are running cards like demonic consultation or dragonstorm.

With the already terrible fixing, running reality smasher and thought-knot seer also makes no sense; all of the affinity/metalcraft cards are also baffling, since you can eyeball that there isn't enough artifact density for them to work consistently.

Ugh, what is even happening here. This is like some bizarre episode of kitchen nightmares where the chef is serving up filet human in a converted fast food restaurant, while the manager only sits there mumbling over and over about how nothing is wrong and they just need to change their supplier.

But I don't see this ending well, just in case you haven't picked up on that. And I'll be moving into my salt mine now.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Went with my aggro plan this time, and it went much better:

W/R from CubeTutor.com











Decades of red design being burn focused means you can take anything when on an aggro plan, and don't really have to worry about it being mismatched as removal vs. an opponents threat. You can also run on an all basic mana base if you need to, and can focus just on taking early drops and cheap removal/burn.

A lot of those early drops feel very parasitic, and the draft AI is probably being taught to ignore them (steppe lynx without fetches...mogg conscripts which wasn't playable in the penny cube...).

I at least got to the deck building screen this time though.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Here is the color twist cube

Grixis from CubeTutor.com












Only 50 fixing lands, but lots of mana rocks that at least help. This is the problem with broad power bands, you end up just carving your way around the lower power synergy cards as much as you can, and your strategy warps its way around the bombs.

This is just 90% ETB value, and 10% low power synergy filler. Having red be a control color isn't really that revolutionary as you can just snipe planeswalkers for CA, and neither is having blue be aggressive (most cube lists already have U/x flyers as a deck). The garbage blue weenies will just be drafted around.

Still, I enjoyed this draft a lot more than the pro tour format, though I am disappointed this didn't provide as unique an experience as I had hoped.
 
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