General The Draft Exchange

[Onderzeeboot]

Sidisi looks insane in StormEntity's deck. Almost 50% creatures. And you even have Reveillark for combo potential. Nice.

Don't know how I keep forgetting about Descend upon the Sinful, that card seems like a perfect slot-in for Terminus (rip ftv foil).

I tried your cube again and had a lot of fun this time! I basically wound up in Grixis. I started with a p1p1 Meloku and was looking for ways to make the tokens more meaningful, but the only thing that really crossed my path was the Kolaghan. Luckily I had just played caked up some fixing for a black splash, just in case, so that worked out beautifully! I even got his Command as well, which is a boss instant to copy with the Gearhulk I also picked up two equips that could make the Spikeshot Elder quite big! All in all there's a lot of value in this deck, a lot of cute little interactions. Heh, I even picked up a second dragon for the Kolaghan, or rather, Skyship Stalker was my p1p2

Onderzeeboot's Grixis draft of Sigh, A Cube on 28/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

I knew it was a fluke Sigh

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It's possible I should have played a Geistblast over the Grim Lavamancer. There's a ton of stuff I don't actually want to exile because of Gearhulk and Command, plush some flashback cards, while copying a Command in the late game can be backbreaking!

Would have loved to see some more stuff to power up the Pyromancer and Meloku tokens by the way. I think I would have snap picked up an Alpha Orcish Oriflamme (you know, the one)! Breakneck Rider would also have been great with all the instants in my deck.

 

[sigh]

It's possible I should have played a Geistblast over the Grim Lavamancer. There's a ton of stuff I don't actually want to exile because of Gearhulk and Command, plush some flashback cards, while copying a Command in the late game can be backbreaking!

Would have loved to see some more stuff to power up the Pyromancer and Meloku tokens by the way. I think I would have snap picked up an Alpha Orcish Oriflamme (you know, the one)! Breakneck Rider would also have been great with all the instants in my deck.

I reAlly like geistblast for this deck, basically for exactly the reasons you are describing. If anything, it's another instant for Gearhulk to choose from.

I also had the same thoughts about the tokens when I saw the generators aan then Kolaghan. Orcish Oriflamme might not be a terrible idea... and it's be great in the Jeskai version too! Have no idea what I'd swap out for it.

Drafted your cube! Had an... Interesting draft experience, really enjoyed where I ended up. Fell into simic with Tireless Tracker and then Chasm Skulker. So that immediately puts me on the back foot. Saw the GW counters theme start to develop, and decided "why UG tempo, when I can be U + GW tempo?" And the rest of the deck fell out from there. Not sure if you are specifically trying to avoid this, but even a couple ash barrens would have helped a bunch. Not sure if you still have any BLB freebies, like Crumbling vestige. Anyway, love how the counters theme played out as a card advantage base for the deck, and there are even some +1/+1 synergies in blue!

Bant +1/+1 tempo synergy from CubeTutor.com

 

[StormEntity]

Cool to see Chasm Skulker getting in on the action, and it can even go bananas with Glare of Subdual should it die. Nice deck, cool blue aggro stuff. Anyway, went ahead and drafted Sigh's cube (gotta keep Draft Exchange popping, it's not my favorite thread on Riptide for nothing). Still trying to avoid blue after noticing a pretty obnoxious trend in my drafts a little while ago, so I took Bitterblossom P1P1. Followed up with Sudden Demise in the hopes of going some kind of Big Rakdos or else Jund. I always like a nonblue control deck. I set off in search of removal and value engines, in true Jund fashion. Ob Nixilis is both, so I'm 100% in. I really like this card, it's super fun despite not being the kind of thing my cube wants. Pleasantly, I ended up with a quite controlling and very BR deck.

Big Rakdos from CubeTutor.com

My pool ended up kinda split between supporting Pyromancer's Goggles and supporting Feldon/Whip of Erebos/Alesha, who Smiles at Death. The sweepers plus a dearth of creatures in the pool to support Alesha led me down this path. It's possible this kinda split identity is something you can keep your eye on or try to cross over a little more? Just trying to give some kind of feedback; I'm happy with the draft/deck.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

It's silly maybe, but if it works, it works! I've been thinking of ways to make my boosters feel less land-heavy for a while now, because it is a concern that I would like to adress, but I don't want my players to be unable to play their cards. Fixing is a very important part of cube drafts, even more so in an environment with a lot of gold cards. I really like the free triland with three color cards rule, as it not only achieves this goal, but also makes sure people always get the right fixing to splash their three color card, making those cards eminently more drafteable.

The borderposts are a recent addition, but in testing they've been really nice, since they double (triple?) as artifact support, ramp support and prowess support!

All in all I've been able to cut 20 lands from my land section this way (since I am going to add a third three color card to each section), which means that, on average, there'll be 20*(360/450)/(3*8)=2/3 less lands per pack. So that's down from 2 lands per pack on average to just 1 1/3. I think that's a noticeable difference actually!

Edit: There's actually another important reason for the "too many lands" illusion. Experienced players know lands are important, and will often snap pick adequate fixing once they already have a skeleton of a deck. These players would hardly complain about seeing lands. Now imagine an inexperienced group that undervalues fixing. What would they pick given the choice, an exciting real card or a dull land? In there mind the land does nothing. The consequence is that lands will wheel much more often in an inexperienced group, reinforcing the image of packs with too many lands!

Thats a really good point.

Really interesting topic though, so I hope you don't see it as dog piling on your format. It is a tough spot to be in, so you've done fine coming up with a solution given the facts.

One thing that I was wondering, as a hypothetical, is if its literally *just* the fact that its lands: like if you siphoned off some of the fixing to artifacts, if that would break the illusion, because this really does seem to a product of perception.

Say we have 40 mana fixing lands at 450 (as in physically in the format): that puts us at (rounding up) 9% fixing. Lets assume that 40 fixing lands is what our group will tolerate before complaining. If we add 10 signets in the af section, that pushes us up to 11% fixing, and if we can find a way to add 5 more fixing sources, that puts us up to 12%, which is probably manageable.

You could achieve that organically with boarder posts, or try to sneak the land total up to 45 without them noticing. Either way I wonder if that would be enough to break the pattern of confirmation bias created by the slightly larger format.

Or I suppose, this opens up a discussion as to whether 450 formats are generally too big, and 425 or 415 might be a better target number.

Bant +1/+1 tempo synergy from CubeTutor.com

Really like this deck, and have been thinking lately about UGW as a "spells" color in comparison with UWR. White always seems like it slots in surprisingly well with its evasive spell based token makers, green selection spells, and spell triggered vertical growth creatures. This seems like an interesting spot to run glare of subdual as a more balanced, de-facto three color opposition.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

The

Thats a really good point.

Really interesting topic though, so I hope you don't see it as dog piling on your format. It is a tough spot to be in, so you've done fine coming up with a solution given the facts.

One thing that I was wondering, as a hypothetical, is if its literally *just* the fact that its lands: like if you siphoned off some of the fixing to artifacts, if that would break the illusion, because this really does seem to a product of perception.

Say we have 40 mana fixing lands at 450 (as in physically in the format): that puts us at (rounding up) 9% fixing. Lets assume that 40 fixing lands is what our group will tolerate before complaining. If we add 10 signets in the af section, that pushes us up to 11% fixing, and if we can find a way to add 5 more fixing sources, that puts us up to 12%, which is probably manageable.

You could achieve that organically with boarder posts, or try to sneak the land total up to 45 without them noticing. Either way I wonder if that would be enough to break the pattern of confirmation bias created by the slightly larger format.

Or I suppose, this opens up a discussion as to whether 450 formats are generally too big, and 425 or 415 might be a better target number.

I'd like to help out with some numbers!

I have 59 sources of mana fixing, in a cube of 430 cards (the 'current iteration). That's 13.7% of the cube that can fix for mana.

Note that this is including all non-land cards that tap or fix for more than one color of mana, or fetch more than one 'color' of land. This does NOT include cards that make mana of a kind that you should already have (burning-tree emissary, Rofellos, Elvish Mystic, to name a few examples.)

For lands, I have 43, which is exactly 10% currently.

My drafters have historically had two reactions upon drafting my cube. They are:

• "Huh, this cube has more fixing in it than I'm used to."
• "I love how much fixing there is in this cube!"

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. From my experience with my cube, I have found splashing third colors trivial, and have sometimes found myself able to respectably build 4-color decks. Note: My cube is very high power, and contains mana-fixing cards that may pull more than their fair share of weight (Lotus Cobra for example.)

Don't know if this info helps but... hope it does!

Edit: Just checked the crumble pie list: Where is Prismatic lens?! That card is incredible, and should be in most cubes imo. Always baseline good, and fixes at a cost. It's a wonderful way of having your drafters feel that they are picking proactive fixing cards that are also good besides (because they are!).

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Edit: Just checked the crumble pie list: Where is Prismatic lens?! That card is incredible, and should be in most cubes imo. Always baseline good, and fixes at a cost. It's a wonderful way of having your drafters feel that they are picking proactive fixing cards that are also good besides (because they are!).

One of the design principles I used is 3 cmc rocks into 5 cmc wraths. If you want mana acceleration that's cheaper than 3 mana you better look for green cards. The multicolor nature of the cube makes it naturally slower, and I've found that delaying wraths and midrange creatures by a turn helps Aggro decks a lot. Once I made the wraths more expensive, I realized the control decks didn't really need 2 cmc rocks to power out their wraths anymore. Instead they now get to cast a defensive spell on turn 2, drop a rock on turn 3, and then see where they go from there. It's one of the reasons why the Borderposts are such a natural fit as well. Whereas in most cubes they are wildly outclassed by other mana rocks, simply by having a cmc of 3 instead of 2, in this cube that's just par for the course, and instead of being too expensive, they offer a flexibility the other 3 cmc rocks don't.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

One of the design principles I used is 3 cmc rocks into 5 cmc wraths. If you want mana acceleration that's cheaper than 3 mana you better look for green cards. The multicolor nature of the cube makes it naturally slower, and I've found that delaying wraths and midrange creatures by a turn helps Aggro decks a lot. Once I made the wraths more expensive, I realized the control decks didn't really need 2 cmc rocks to power out their wraths anymore. Instead they now get to cast a defensive spell on turn 2, drop a rock on turn 3, and then see where they go from there. It's one of the reasons why the Borderposts are such a natural fit as well. Whereas in most cubes they are wildly outclassed by other mana rocks, simply by having a cmc of 3 instead of 2, in this cube that's just par for the course, and instead of being too expensive, they offer a flexibility the other 3 cmc rocks don't.

Gotcha.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I reAlly like geistblast for this deck, basically for exactly the reasons you are describing. If anything, it's another instant for Gearhulk to choose from.

I also had the same thoughts about the tokens when I saw the generators aan then Kolaghan. Orcish Oriflamme might not be a terrible idea... and it's be great in the Jeskai version too! Have no idea what I'd swap out for it.

Drafted your cube! Had an... Interesting draft experience, really enjoyed where I ended up. Fell into simic with Tireless Tracker and then Chasm Skulker. So that immediately puts me on the back foot. Saw the GW counters theme start to develop, and decided "why UG tempo, when I can be U + GW tempo?" And the rest of the deck fell out from there. Not sure if you are specifically trying to avoid this, but even a couple ash barrens would have helped a bunch. Not sure if you still have any BLB freebies, like Crumbling vestige. Anyway, love how the counters theme played out as a card advantage base for the deck, and there are even some +1/+1 synergies in blue!

Haha, well, if you'ld draft my cube IRL, you would have known is not supported in this cube. That doesn't mean it isn't possible to draft a deck, but it certainly isn't encouraged. It will probably feel something like drafting a deck in Return to Ravnica, except that the cards in my cube are individually more powerful, so you can actually build something that resembles a deck There is some fixing available, though. There's some fixing in green, some fixing in the artifact section, and of course there's the three Temur cards that come with a free Frontier Bivouac. It's not much, but it's not nothing either I saw you pick up an Armorcraft Judge over Prophetic Prism (which is defensible given the theme you were going for), and then a Wharf Infiltrator over a Servant of the Conduit. Picking the Servant would have probably been better for you there, as you indeed ended up cutting the Infiltrator. You picked up the Traverse the Ulvenwald in a pack that also contained Sarkhan Unbroken, which is fine, but that Sarkhan actually wheeled, and you picked a Consulate Skygate over it. I think I would have picked the Sarkhan there just for the fixing. All in all you could have gotten two more pieces of fixing, which would have made the mana a bit more reliable, but it's still fine I think. And you certainly made the theme work in an unsupported color pair!

 

[safra]

I haven't drafted the Penny Pincher in a while, so I did two drafts. Initially I first-picked Unburial Rites, but didn't really see any of the best fatties, so I built into this weird dredge deck with Kessig Cagebreakers as the big payoff card. I mean, I'm happy to reanimate an Eternal Dragon, don't get me wrong, but I would've liked to have a Pelakka Wurm to really go all-in.

Dredge Rites from CubeTutor.com

Speaking of Pelakka Wurm...I hear someone likes the UG mana superiority deck? (first-picked Mulldrifter, hoped to build combo b/c of course I did. Regret not drafting Rewind.)

UG big mana from CubeTutor.com

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

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Hahaha, that last deck looks hilarious You even have the fixing to cycle Resounding Wave!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Drafted Safra's Sharzad cube.



First picked a Daretti out of an interesting pack. Sun Titan and Tasigur are obvious options, and Oblivion Ring is also a safe pick. Decided to start with a multicolor card though, as I love the design of Daretti. Picked up removal and aggressive creatures, really like the interaction between Daretti and Toshiro Umezawa (which I apparently forgot to include over on CubeTutor). This deck looks gas, there's just so much removal and a fair bit of recursion going on.

One thing I do want to point out though is the wealth (WEALTH I tell you!) of fetches I managed to pick up for Deathrite Shaman, but sadly the two Badlands didn't show up Maybe there should be an additional fetchable land in the cube? Would have really appreciated at least one dual, but with only two in the cube there's a distinct possibility you simply won't be able to pick one up, as was the case here. You can get to with multiple fetches (i.e. Marsh Flats works just as well as Bloodstained Mire when you're looking for a Badlands), but only if there actually are enough targets.

Onderzeeboot's BR draft of Sharzad on 29/11/2016 from CubeTutor.com

 

[safra]

Drafted Safra's Sharzad cube.

One thing I do want to point out though is the wealth (WEALTH I tell you!) of fetches I managed to pick up for Deathrite Shaman, but sadly the two Badlands didn't show up Maybe there should be an additional fetchable land in the cube? Would have really appreciated at least one dual, but with only two in the cube there's a distinct possibility you simply won't be able to pick one up, as was the case here. You can get to with multiple fetches (i.e. Marsh Flats works just as well as Bloodstained Mire when you're looking for a Badlands), but only if there actually are enough targets.

I may add a couple of [shockland of choice] cards for this reason. Good feedback, thanks. The Abandoned lands and stuff like your Deathrite are supposed to make up for this but that really is quite a few fetchlands to no unique fetchables.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I may add a couple of [shockland of choice] cards for this reason. Good feedback, thanks. The Abandoned lands and stuff like your Deathrite are supposed to make up for this but that really is quite a few fetchlands to no unique fetchables.

Keep me posted on how this goes! (I've been having similar problems)

 

[safra]

Keep me posted on how this goes! (I've been having similar problems)

I noticed you changed the Abandoned lands into Artificer's lands (artifact, basic type, etb untapped scry 1). How come?

 

[Chris Taylor]

I removed the colorless stuff, was thinking about putting in an artifact theme, and haven't seen much reason to change it back. It's not like I run disenchant so that people get stone rained on 2, so all it's doing is making goyf slightly bigger.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Drafted a random cube to keep the fun going, Chris, you're up!



First picked an FTK, reasoning that black would be contested and green would get picked either the next seat or the one after that. The mono red kept flowing, so I just ended up in that, plus a Cryptic Command off of Unexpected Potential of course! Seems pretty great in an aggressive deck that card

There's more options in the sideboard though. I'm pretty sure it's wrong to leave Chandra, Pyromaster on the sidelines actually, but I wasn't sure what to cut. There's also a Kolaghan's Command , a Rancor and a Huntmaster of the Fells in case I want to switch up gears with Unexpected Potential.

All in all the deck pretty much drafted itself. Oh, and once again I had enough fetches but not enough actual fixing. Well, I had fixing to go into white, but never picked up a white card I wanted to splash for. I saw one Steam Vents, but picked something else over it, and I don't remember seeing a Stomping Ground, at least not after I picked up the Huntmaster. You do run more fetchables than fetches though, so I guess this was just coincidence, or me not picking the Steam Vents high enough

Onderzeeboot's draft Mono-R of The Dandy Cube on 01/12/2016 from CubeTutor.com

 

[Modin]

So I drafted Onderzeeboot's cube and faced this first booster, which already got me thinking for some time:

I picked Oona's Prowler out of it, hoping, thinking that it would help me stay open(especially archetype wise) and proceeded to struggle through the draft, picking some blue and green cards until I shifted into some sort of BW sacrifice/weenie deck. Thankfully Liliana came back and I was able to pick up some strong cards and synergies, but still I feel like I could have gotten more out of this.
Here is what I ended up with:

BW Artifact Aggro from CubeTutor.com

Dryad Militant should probably be in the list (maybe instead of Darkblast, depends on the envirnoment). During the draft I thought to have at least one Windswept Heath and toyed with the idea of splashing green(see gw cards in the sb) but as that wasn't the case I settled on this version. It felt like my decisions really mattered (and those weren't easy!), so I had a lot of fun doing this little exercise.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So I drafted Onderzeeboot's cube and faced this first booster, which already got me thinking for some time:

I picked Oona's Prowler out of it, hoping, thinking that it would help me stay open(especially archetype wise) and proceeded to struggle through the draft, picking some blue and green cards until I shifted into some sort of BW sacrifice/weenie deck. Thankfully Liliana came back and I was able to pick up some strong cards and synergies, but still I feel like I could have gotten more out of this.

Dryad Militant should probably be in the list (maybe instead of Darkblast, depends on the envirnoment). During the draft I thought to have at least one Windswept Heath and toyed with the idea of splashing green(see gw cards in the sb) but as that wasn't the case I settled on this version. It felt like my decisions really mattered (and those weren't easy!), so I had a lot of fun doing this little exercise.

Sweet pack. I think I would have gone with the Liliana, hoping to wheel Carrion Feeder for the at will flip. I think Longtusk Cub, Lathnu Hellion, Sunlance and Sharding Sphinx are solid options as well, so you really could have gone anywhere from here. Nice to hear that you had fun drafting my cube. I've been tweaking it for the last week or so, and I feel I'm close to a version I want to sleeve up!

I'm super busy with my cube atm, so Magic is at the front of my mind, might as well return the favor

P1p1 was easy, with Young Pyromancer being a key card in one of my favorite archetypes, UR spells. P1p2 I pick up a Goblin Bombardment to sack all the tokens to, and when I continue that with p1p3 Pyre Hound and p1p4 Aberrant Researcher I know I'm in the right spot. Here we go!



Got there! What a nice deck There's some super sweet interactions here, like surging out an early Tyrant of Valakut off of some bouncelands and a Frantic Search. I wish I could have picked up some more one drops, Preordain and Brainstorm (or anything like it really) would have been great with Jori En, instead of the somewhat clunky Pieces of the Puzzle and Mystic Retrieval. Sadly, there's only a single Serum Visions in the cube. To support surge, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to put in a few more, I know I would've been happy to pick them up!

Onderzeeboot's UR draft of BastelPeasant on 05/12/2016 from CubeTutor.com

 

[Modin]

Thanks a lot for the feedback I'm actually not in love with Pieces of the Puzzle either. I should definately be looking for cmc 1 spells in blue to include but was weary of including the strong cantrips like Brainstorm because of power level concerns. I might add Thought Scourthough, and I am considering to try Mystic Speculation or maybe even Dream Twist...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Thanks a lot for the feedback I'm actually not in love with Pieces of the Puzzle either. I should definately be looking for cmc 1 spells in blue to include but was weary of including the strong cantrips like Brainstorm because of power level concerns. I might add Thought Scourthough, and I am considering to try Mystic Speculation or maybe even Dream Twist...

The beauty of Brainstorm is it scales to your environment. You run less fetches, and only the ETB tapped variants, so it's automatically worse than in a heavy fetch environment. Likewise, Brainstorm is much better in combo decks than in other archetypes. The less combo you have in your cube, the less oppressive cheap cantrips become.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Thanks a lot for the feedback I'm actually not in love with Pieces of the Puzzle either. I should definately be looking for cmc 1 spells in blue to include but was weary of including the strong cantrips like Brainstorm because of power level concerns. I might add Thought Scourthough, and I am considering to try Mystic Speculation or maybe even Dream Twist...

PS. Mystic Speculation is a good spell, but it's not a one drop. If you're looking for powered down cantrips that are still playable, might I suggest some of these?

 

[StormEntity]

Started with Cultivator's Caravan and Mystical Teachings and set out to attain mana superiority and grind people out with Teachings. I was excited to see Pristine Talisman, which seems like a good way to claw back into games. My deck turned out very controlling, which is encouraging. I also like the Sen Triplets/Sphinx Summoner/Sharuum the Hegemon angle it's got going on.

Esper Control from CubeTutor.com

 

[sigh]

first picked an Armageddon. I'll be the first to say that I don't really like that card in cube, but I'm not above utilizing it . I honestly think it may be key for the success of the deck in a combo-forward environment. Started off going into WB, but quickly swiveled in GW with Sylvan Advocate P4 or so. Quickly found my groove, and it seems like the deck was very open. Glad I found a couple of "combo" angles of my own, namely Mirror Entity and Brisela. Recruiter of the Guard comes in clutch here, finding the Entity, but also cards like Thalia, Saffi, even the Angel of Invention.

How do these decks perform in the field? I feel like I do have some angles to match the blue and black based decks, but I also felt that I was being "too fair"? I would need to draft the environment more to know just how combo-y it is. Double Mentor of the Meek is an interesting choice, if I had to doule up on anything, double Recruiter of the Guard would be sweet.

GW midrange from CubeTutor.com

 

[StormEntity]

The idea behind Mentor of the Meek getting doubled up was to help facilitate creature-based Faith's Reward/Rally the Ancestors decks. Now that I think about it a second Recruiter of the Guard might just be better in that slot. In my (limited) experience with this cube I think it would definitely be a competitive deck. Armageddon/Knight is a really potent curve-out, and the deck has the option of going infinite with Mirror Entity/Saffi Eriksdotter/Reveillark/Angel of Invention, though that's a little ambitious. I probably would have maindecked the Fauna Shaman since it helps set up those shenanigans as well as Brisela and Vengevine.