General The Draft Exchange

[GiftsForgiven]

Drafted Onderzeboot's cube! What an opening pack!



There are some pretty great picks here, but for me it comes down to Nissa vs. Jace. Both excellent. I think Nissa Vital Force is one of the most underrated PWers in recent memory.

After some agonizing, I decided to go with Nissa... and was immediately punished by seeing a bunch of U/R stuff I'd have loved to draft with

slovakattack's draft of Magic Crumble Pie [Active] on 20/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

The deck came out pretty well though, over all. Sarkhan is basically a free splash here. There was a little tension between whether to go aggro or midrange, but I feel that Dragonlord Atarka is not the kind of card that you avoid putting in your deck if you can, so I opted for a more midrangey strategy. I'm a little light on mana dorks, but the borderposts are weaker-but-acceptable substitutions, here. I do like this deck quite a bit. It's much more proactive than not, but it has strong plays at every stage of the game- and the renegade krasis has cute interactions with travel preparations that I appreciate.

Note that the 'spirebluff canal' is a custom land that has both basic land types.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It's even freer than you realize, as it comes with a free Frontier Bivouac, because it's a three color gold card!

Also, sweet! A Naya deck that looks fun to play! I'm still wondering if maybe I need to design my own Naya cards. Are there any gold cards that you would have played in this deck?

 

[StormEntity]

Drafting Onder's cube sight unseen: Started off in P1P1 with Nissa, Vastwood Seer, noting a few fabricate cards and Grand Architect that tip me off as to an artifact archetype. P1P2: Energy everywhere! +1 counters matter, and I like the way this cube uses Fabricate as WotC intended: as a go-between for +1 counters and artifacts. Nevertheless, I take another flip walker in Liliana, Heretical Healer. Maybe I can do some sort of rock deck? In pick 3 Demonic Pact catches my eye and I move in. Pick 4 I have a choice between splashing Restoration Angel and taking Maelstrom Wandereralmost entirely for the fixing land attached to it. I take the Frontier Bivouac and proceed on my merry way. Finish up Pack 1 with a Life from the Loam and some assorted fetches and shocks.

I start P2 with a Courser of Kruphix, a great value card. Greenwarden of Murasa keeps the value train rolling all the way into a Bloodbraid Elf in pick 3. I'm really just looking to accumulate two-for-ones as often as possible. I love when this kind of deck can be built. Nissa, Vital Force next, hoping to table Consuming Vapors. I feel like this cube has a pretty high curve, which is an interesting and fun trait. I'm stoked to see a Cultivate and snap it up immediately. Also I like the way power matters has been implemented here. Bringing in the Naya mechanic of 5 power matters is a great way to add depth and support to the archetype.

P3 began with a Birds of Paradise, which seems very good in this cube. Genesis is a cool engine in what seems like a slow format, and I'd like an engine.

Here's where I ended up, and it's pretty spicy:

4Color Cascade from CubeTutor.com

 

[GiftsForgiven]

It's even freer than you realize, as it comes with a free Frontier Bivouac, because it's a three color gold card!

Also, sweet! A Naya deck that looks fun to play! I'm still wondering if maybe I need to design my own Naya cards. Are there any gold cards that you would have played in this deck?

Didn't even know about the free land rule! I wouldn't have picked so many border-posts if I'd have known. As for gold cards wooly thoctar, but that's about it. Naya is too much of a goodstuff shard currently to be particularly interesting.

 

[safra]

Drafted StormEntity's cube. Saw Bob pack one and snap picked him, followed by a P1P3 Smallpox. However, later in the pack I saw Griselbrand, Goryo's Vengeance and Emrakul, managing to wheel Gris and Em while snatching up Goryo's for a new archetype to jump into. Pack two finds more jund discard outlets, redundancy in the form of Doomed Necromancer, and Lotus Bloom to accelerate out my Living Death. Pack three, though, provides Necrotic Ooze (which Dom Harvey has shown us all is very good in Goryo's decks), YawgWill and other goodies. I think I'd probably go 1-2 with this deck (it's kind of disjointed) but I'm sure it'd be a blast.

Jund Goryo's from CubeTutor.com

http://cubetutor.com/sharzad or http://cubetutor.com/karoobe, tia

 

[StormEntity]

Don't worry, Dom will get credit where credit's due when this cube gets a writeup. Shamelessly took the Necrotic Ooze Traverse the Ulvenwald package as well as the Goryo's.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Drafted Grillo's cube, p1p1...

View attachment 1188

Went with the Psi Blast, as that's a unique effect blue isn't supposed to get. Then drafted a Jori En in p1p2 and ended up in the Char color anyway!

Onderzeeboot's draft of The Penny Pincher Cube on 20/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

Eh... It's hard to gauge how bad or good this deck is, but it feels kinda iffy. Not sure it will get there. I feel it lacks a bit of oomph. I do have a Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind in my sideboard, but that card feels like nothing the rest of my deck is trying to do. Which is pretty much cross your fingers and pray that you can keep them off creatures long enough to finish your opponent off. Or equip a flyer, I guess that works as well! Not sure what I was hoping for in , but the creatures I saw feel very fragile.

I finally got around to putting up a first draft of my new cube up on CT. Clickity in the signature! Any input is greatly appreciated!

For a first draft this is perfectly fine. p1p1 it was a choice between izzet boilworks or rot farm. I think the slight nod is towards rot farm, though its very close. The other cards don't even come close in terms of power level, though psy blast is still a fine card to take, especially if you're new to bounceland formats.

The deck itself I would go from your pool

+



-




Deck is medium, and kind of wants a bushwhacker the way it was configured. This way you have a better curve, more room for better top decks, can replay temples for value to smooth draws, can ramp with cloud of faeries, have a large threat to send flying over with tibor and lumia, better draw/sifting, and a game winning bomb with ways to protect it.

Their are three strategies this deck is going to try to win win:

1. Cumulative creature beats from a semi-steady ground curve into buffed flyers
2. Find spikeshot elder and put an equip on it.
3. Find niv-mizzet, and take over the game with him.

Either way you're going to want assault strobe to steal wins from much better decks, niv-mizzet to steal wins from much better decks, and help finding the spikeshot elder pieces. Either way, you'll want apostle's blessing to protect those critical threats, and artificer's epiphany to sift through the deck looking for combo pieces or niv-mizzet.

The two bouncelands help you do that by giving you replays on your temples, to dig towards cards you need, maximizing your top deck hits, and letting you ramp.

Took your cube for a spin, and it was perfectly fine.

G/W counters from CubeTutor.com

Deck looks fine, no real complaints. There is enough counter activity going on that armorcraft judge looks at least as good as a mulldrifter, which is nice to see as I was worried the floor on it would be too low. The payoffs for going with counters look reasonable.

Took a first pick Daghatar the adamant, because I was curious if someone had finally found a way to make him playable. He was not. Also kind of disappointed by the fixing, which didn't allow for the blue splash. Would have liked to have thrumingbird in this deck.

Seems solid though, nothing really to complain about from the actual draft, besides my fixing complaint. I thought the customs might be overwhelming, but the density was tasteful.

 

[Peter LaCara]

God, the Penny Pincher Cube is so good.

UB Ninjas from CubeTutor.com

I love the combination of cheap ETB creatures and the ninjas. I first picked Pshychatog, who I'm not sure even goes that well in this deck. There's a few Simic/green cards I picked up as well, but I didn't think they added enough to justify making the mana worse. But I wanna play this deck now. It looks fun.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Thanks for all the drafts everyone! Some cubes were missed though, so here's a bunch of drafts!

First up is GiftsForgiven! P1p1 gave me a Gideon, and soon I was drafting . Somehow these decks always turn out better than Jason and I anticipate I debated splashing black for Vindicate and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, off the Temple of Silence, Birds of Paradise and a Swamp, but I don't think it's worth it. What I have in green and white is strong enough that the stable mana base is preferable.

Onderzeeboot's GW draft of Current Iteration on 21/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

Be back later

 

[Onderzeeboot]

On to Safra's Sharzad cube! P1p1 Elder Deepfried was objectively the best card to pick, amirite? Also, why did I forget to include that in my cube? o_O Note to self: change cube.



I tried to be for a while, but the black wasn't flowing, and green just kept on coming! I drafted two Pods late, but didn't have a curve. I did get a decent amount of removal for a deck I feel, even though most of it is temporary. The plan seems to be getting in with small dudes while tapping and bouncing their stuff, works for me!

Onderzeeboot's GUb draft of Sharzad on 21/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

 

[Onderzeeboot]

And finally Peter LaCara's cube! First pick was an easy Daretti. There's practically nothing else in the pack!



I picked a few red cards for signaling purposes, including a p1p3 Goblin Welder. Guess I'm all in on the artifact plan! I debated picking blue cards, but I had passed some good ones already, so I wasn't feeling comfortable, when all of a sudden I spotted a Bygone Bishop a few packs in. "That works!", I thought, and moved in on white. The rest of the packs went smoothly, including a (I believe) p2p2 Combustible Gearhulk into a p2p3 Cataclysming Gearhulk, and Blasphemous Act and Boros Reckoner to go with the Stuffy Doll I had already picked up. Deck looks super sweet!

Onderzeeboot's WR Artifacts draft of Pete's Good Games Cube on 21/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

 

[Aston]

I see Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim in a couple of p1p1s, how has she been performing? I'm looking for a cut in B/W and I think an additional sacrifice outlet would be useful, and I'm torn between her and Cartel Aristocrat at the moment.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

For a first draft this is perfectly fine.

...text...

That was sweet feedback, thanks! I totally forgot to play the on color bouncelands, that was a deckbuilding mistake. I think I would keep the Thopter Engineer though, because it makes a thopter (which is good with equips) and gives Thundering Tanadon haste, which seems better than creating three goblins. Hordeling Outburst is bad with Tibor and Lumia anyway.

Took your cube for a spin, and it was perfectly fine.

Deck looks fine, no real complaints. There is enough counter activity going on that armorcraft judge looks at least as good as a mulldrifter, which is nice to see as I was worried the floor on it would be too low. The payoffs for going with counters look reasonable.

Took a first pick Daghatar the adamant, because I was curious if someone had finally found a way to make him playable. He was not. Also kind of disappointed by the fixing, which didn't allow for the blue splash. Would have liked to have thrumingbird in this deck.

Seems solid though, nothing really to complain about from the actual draft, besides my fixing complaint. I thought the customs might be overwhelming, but the density was tasteful.

Blue is opposite of in this cube, so the fixing is iffy for that indeed. I did ease up a bit on fixing, as green now has multiple ways to generate off-color mana, and there's the option to play a fetch for the double splash, but thats pretty greedy.

Re: Daghatar. He's a 4/4 vigilance that messes with combat math and works with the +1/+1 counter theme (plus he can be brought back by a Reveillark as a bonus). Looks far from unplayable to me?

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Time to Draft! First up, Peter's cube:

Grixis PW control from CubeTutor.com

I'm pretty sure that my 3-drop slot is impossible, even with multiple pieces of fixing. Gotta work with watcha got, though. I saw a lot of U/B artifacts initially, but it didn't really pan out that way. I haven't drafted this cube before, so I don't know if that's a thing. Deck still looks fun to play. Pestilence is probably a house here.

Aston's Cube:

First pack had a Sword of Feast and Famine in it. If it were SoFI i'd have picked it, but instead I choose Aetherling as a flexible and annoying finisher. Maybe I can build another control deck? Pack 2 I see a Prime Time, and am immediately dispelled of that option. What follows is quite possibly the greediest deck I've ever drafted.

4-color Waterfall from CubeTutor.com

...I really wish I had a second Chromatic Lantern effect, like Prismatic Omen... but I still want to play this. I want to play this so badly.

Gotta get back to work. More drafts to come!

 

[Aston]

Bit of a loose attempt at G/u ramp.

Aston's draft of Current Iteration on 21/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

Opposition is probably still nuts though.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

- masked admirers
-emrakrul
-stroke

+sylvan safekeeper
+ vapor snag
+ duplicant

You basically want to get an elf out, or GSZ for an elf turns 1-2 or for safekeeper, than hit fof to find treachery or opposition, and take over the game from there with your army in a can dudes. Safekeeper gives you a way to counter all of their removal, while you lock them out of the game.

Sweet deck. Prob should cut masked admirers from the cube though.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Bit of a loose attempt at G/u ramp.

Aston's draft of Current Iteration on 21/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

Opposition is probably still nuts though.

Really hard to say no to Opposition with Deranged Hermit/Avenger of Zendikar. Rofellos too. Yikes.

Sweet deck. Prob should cut masked admirers from the cube though.

It's a relic from when the cube wasn't so high-power. Been thinking of replacing it with Harmonize as of late.

I'd love to put Fastbond in the cube, but green is already so strong :[

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Some more drafts!

First, Safra's Exploratory Sketch:

Reanimator from CubeTutor.com

Drafted a fairly good-looking U/B reanimator deck. The draft felt fine, although it's a bit jarring to see weaker cards (like posessed skaab) alongside the likes of Griselbrand. First picked Griselbrand btw. It's really hard not to FP the Grizzfather.

Next up, StormEntity's cube!

U/R Storm? from CubeTutor.com

I can never tell whether a storm deck is a bust or not till I play it. This looks more bust than big winner, but it has some interesting things going on that I can appreciate.

 

[StormEntity]

As a Storm aficionado myself, the deck seems like a bundle of fun but short a win condition. I've been thinking about Brain Freeze to enable stuff like this as well as to help out with self-mill. This'll be a big point in favor of its inclusion, since at the moment blue is somewhat short on direction (weird, I know).

I've noticed I've pretty much exclusively been drafting blue decks lately, so I consciously buck that trend with a Sylvan Safekeeper. I recently added him to my cube as a land sac outlet, but I'm curious about his fair applications. Then I follow up with Tireless Tracker in hopes of getting a land synergy deck together, though it might be a cool UG tempo plan (must resist!). It's the best card in the pack anyway of course. I ended up on a spicy Jund number with Wildfire and a number of ways to break the symmetry, including a bunch of planeswalkers. It's a real nice mix of good stuff and synergy, something I try (and often fail) to strike a balance with in my cubes.

Jund Lands from CubeTutor.com

 

[shamizy]

I see Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim in a couple of p1p1s, how has she been performing? I'm looking for a cut in B/W and I think an additional sacrifice outlet would be useful, and I'm torn between her and Cartel Aristocrat at the moment.

Seems like this got lost in the middle of the draft replies. I've loved Ayli ever since I put her into the cube. She blocks really well as a 2/3 with Deathtouch holding the fort against more aggressive decks and any midrange fatties, the sac to gain life ability is pretty useful in bigger BW decks (usually Abzan), and she can go wild if you have any additional lifegain support throughout the cube. If you can muster up another Orzhov slot, Karlov of the Ghost Council is pretty much her best friend. I had a drafter come up with this a few months back which gives a good idea of the kind of shell where she can really thrive and function as a major piece:

Little Abzan Combo

I took out Soul Warden, Meren and Karlov a while back to try out other stuff, but I might bring them back since they led to some pretty cool deckbuilding like above. I think Suture Priest is probably a better option than the Warden nowadays since the one slot is more crowded, but I did like all the incidental lifegain from anything ETBing. Karlov could really get out of hand if you drop him on curve, but he was such a fun card to play with and around. sigh had also asked about Ayli specifically and I went into more detail on my cube blog a couple of months ago.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Drafted StormEntity's cube. Started with a Land Tax and ended up in a weird looking amalgam of themes that looks, however, suuuuuuper fun to play. I only run 2 actual artifact, plus the Whirler Rogue, but there is so uncredibly much digging going on that I think I can actually support the Thopter Spy Network? Other than that there's the Brisela combo plus Unburial Rites and Selfless Spirit to keep it in play. Those are probably my two win conditions, and in the meantime I'll try to draw every removal spell in my deck

Onderzeeboot's UWb draft of Cube Eternal on 25/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

My cube is in my sig. Updated it a bit since the beginning of this week.

 

[sigh]

Did a draft of Onders new cube! First pick was Venser, shaper savant, followed by Clique. Getting used to new environments is always a trick, and this one is certainly no exception. Still not entirely sure how the mana base is working, but it was certainly tricky to draft into. One of the bots might have been taking UB lands from under my nose. Basically went into a classic esper control deck, splashed for Etherium Horn Sorcerer. Not sure it's a technically correct splash, but I love the sorcerer. Some more highlights are the metallurgic summoning, and the Sen Triplets! Was very excited to see them in a cube setting, and with 4 colors available to me, it's probably going to be a must-answer.

Taking a look at the list after the fact, 40 fixing lands in 450 seems low, especially in a multicolor focused format. And only having access to 5 guilds of ten makes supporting 3 color decks SO much more difficult to pull off. If you get cut off of one of the two legs available to you... I ran into that with my deck, and in a more classic manabase, I'd have access to a backup leg for my manasbase:


Here's the deck!

Esper splash red control from CubeTutor.com

Cube's in the sig!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Well, it's really 50 lands out of 450, you even included the free Arcane Sanctum that came with your Sen Triplets! And while getting cut off is a possibility, the new cube is a bit more forgiving probably because of some colorless fixing in the artifact section. I expect most decks will simply be two colors, with the three-color cards and some green fixing encouraging more color-hungry builds.

As for your deck, love it. Not quite sure if the wraths are correct, they're quite the non-bo with Metallurgic Summonings and you have a few good cards in your sideboard in Sphinx Summoner, Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Linvala, the Preserver and Solemn Simulacrum. The Solemn especially seems like an auto-include in a four color deck that runs Elder Deep-Fiend! Also, you got three bounce spells with the Triplets, must be nice

 

[sigh]

Well, it's really 50 lands out of 450, you even included the free Arcane Sanctum that came with your Sen Triplets! And while getting cut off is a possibility, the new cube is a bit more forgiving probably because of some colorless fixing in the artifact section. I expect most decks will simply be two colors, with the three-color cards and some green fixing encouraging more color-hungry builds.

As for your deck, love it. Not quite sure if the wraths are correct, they're quite the non-bo with Metallurgic Summonings and you have a few good cards in your sideboard in Sphinx Summoner, Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Linvala, the Preserver and Solemn Simulacrum. The Solemn especially seems like an auto-include in a four color deck that runs Elder Deep-Fiend! Also, you got three bounce spells with the Triplets, must be nice

Yeah, I don't know about the wraths either. I could see Linvala and Gearhulk.

If the playgroup is seasoned, I guess the lands arent that big a deal. Just need to let someone new in on the gig, or they could find themselves trapped in a big way.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

If the playgroup is seasoned, I guess the lands arent that big a deal. Just need to let someone new in on the gig, or they could find themselves trapped in a big way.

Oh definitely, I always start with an introduction to make sure everyone knows what's going on.