The 'Draw-a-Card' cube

[Laz]

OK. It needs to become clear that Red is not an aggressive colour, but rather a control/mid-range oriented attrition one. Sure, it might occasionally lend a hand to a Blue Prowess/Heroic deck, but that help can be with some burn spells, rather than cards which scream 'I am aggro! Pick me in your aggro deck!'
Out:



In addition, there needs to be a lot of cuts, to cards that are a little do-nothing (or at least, too little) or cards that lead people in the wrong directions.
Out:

Stingscourger
Gnarled Scarhide
Raven Familiar
Carrionette
Silent Departure
Lost Auramancers
Vineweft
Inside Out
Mistmoon Griffin
Cystalline Nautilus
Hush
Frog Tongue
Lace with Moonglove


These make room for 10 more mana fixing lands, and for some of the protection listed above. Akroma's Vengeance might also be something of a trap, but there is some support for some more control-oriented decks in White. I have no idea how to convince my drafters that Blue doesn't do control, but I am sure I will find a way.

 

[Laz]

So, I would forgive anyone for not noticing, since it has been happening over on Cube Tutor, but Grillo has been trying to force Heroic for a little while now, and leaving fun comments like 'this draft was a train wreck'. This was the trigger for the rampant cuts last night (that fact that I had been drinking dulled the pain). I have since then, been going through and stripping out a number of do-nothing cards, or alternatively, cards that Grillo gently chided me about.

There are still some changes to make (I am not actually convinced that I need that much enchantment destruction, since none of the Aura's are crazy oppressive, and if someone wants to go wild with some of the build around enchantments, that is awesome, but I don't think it is going to be too oppressive either), but let us say we are at cut number 2.

So... forcing UW aggro, because apparently it was impossible before-hand:

UWg Heroic from CubeTutor.com

Spoiler: Notes

Hopefully less of a pile. Almost straight UW, only splashing for Wax//Wane and Thrill of the Hunt. Has 3 pieces of protection, with Redirect in the board. There are no easy to bin creatures to turn on Stitched Drake, which is perhaps an oversight. Maybe I should be running Mandrills in that slot, and add a second forest.
I don't know how many Cycling lands this build would run. On one hand, you don't really want to draw lands after 3/4, but on the other hand, you want untapped lands on the way there (Aside, playing with Bouncelands is hard. This deck can't really afford to play a bounce land on 2, but doing so on 3 is great, as you can still cast a 2-drop then... but can't hold up protection for your 2-drop, ah! Maybe I should only be running one cycle of bounces and one of something else?)
Heliod's Pilgrim can fetch Glaring Aegis or Ordeal of Thassa, which are great, but maybe Faith's Fetters should be run from the sideboard.

Drafting this, with the heavy 2-drop commitment made me worry a little about the effect of the bouncelands on the format. Here, there is no good time to play a bounceland, and it is actually worse than a tapland. On two, and your 2-drop is delayed. On three, you can't hold up 2-mana in the opponent's turn for protection.

While I like the internal synergy between land ETB triggers (again, planning to replace the KTK gain-lands with Temples post rotation), Cycling lands and Bouncelands, I am not actually using them that effectively. Krosan Restorer and Cloud of Faeries can do some pretty obscene things, but they aren't relied on for any combo element, and so reducing them to a single cycle instead of two cycles isn't going to hurt too much.
I am not sure with what to replace them though. It seems like value oriented midrange will be strong, but not condensing aggro's effective window, since Heroic/Prowess looks to have a lot of tools with which to trump bigger creatures, and the creatures here are pretty below the curve anyway. As such, I am not sure that the additional cycle has to be that aggro-friendly.
M10 Check-lands are an option, but they play so badly with the other lands in the cube. Cycling lands, Bouncelands and Temples all lack basic land types, so these will require a bit of luck and a bit of careful sequencing.
Tri-lands are a possibility, and provide really solid fixing, while also playing well into the allied pairs structure. Perhaps, since a cycle is only 5 cards, these could be combined with Fast-lands and Pain-lands to provide some rare untapped fixing.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Are customs an option for this cube?

 

[James Stevenson]

Are customs an option for this cube?

Pretty dope card. I wonder if they'll ever print something like this?

 

[spicewitch]

Are customs an option for this cube?

At first I was like "eh, okay, it's a better land for the ULD because it's potentially of interest to both fast AND slow decks."

Then I realized it has a cool interaction with bouncelands, where you can use it as a painland early and then change your mind later when you're floody. That's neat, even if it doesn't end up coming up all that often.

 

[Laz]

That land is really sweet, though the reduced complexity version of it is simply a painland with cycling, which is really all that I am looking for.
To balance it out, the painland could just not tap for colourless. A nice aggressive land, that later, depending on how things pan out, you can pick up and turn into a real card.
But... this time I don't want to use customs...


This cycle plays nicely with bouncelands (since you can tap it for coloured mana, then pick it up), but is kind of terrible, like really bad. Also, despite having two identical cycles (Cinder Marsh/Lantern-Lit Graveyard, Thalakos Lowlands/Cloudcrest Lake, etc) there are no enemy coloured versions.

It feels like there is so much design space for lands, but it is so poorly explored.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It feels like there is so much design space for lands, but it is so poorly explored.

I would say it's not explored by design. Or maybe even because there's simply a lot of options out there. Supposing Magic carries on for quite a while yet, and at the moment there's no reason to assume otherwise, this is a good thing. We will see new lands, new options, new designs, and they will give us even more options when filling our cubes.

The only sad thing is, that 3-color lands are really rare. I fear I will have to rely on customs a while longer still.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah sadly enemy color lands were special instead of default until about...Innistrad? Shadowmoor? Which means many cycles went about half finished. (That's what, 3/4 of magic's history at this point?)
A cursory search says 13 lands with a RW identity, 24 with a UW one. I'd custom it. Nobody will complain about the other half of Seachrome Coast or some shit.

Honestly, Custom lands are about the last thing anyone will complain about in terms of custom cards. We know enough not to make them tap for 2, and so long as they aren't Ancient Tomb or overly complicated people don't care, they just want their fixing. Add what works best with your cube.
Like, maybe a full cycle of River of Tears might be a bit over the top (Since that land is so uniquely UB) but stapling "Cycling" onto existing lands is hardly that

 

[Laz]

I ended up just going with Tri-lands and Pain-lands. A lot of the fixing is tapped, but the environment is slow enough that it can handle it.
I also stripped out most of the enchantment destruction, since, as I mentioned previously, it didn't really have any must-hit targets. I mean breaking up someone's Tortured Existence value-chain is great and all, but like the other build around enchantments; Spirit Cairn, Lightning Rift, and Foster; it is self-limiting. The only real issue I can see is that I have effectively turned Temporal isolation into an un-conditional Doom Blade. Maybe it should just become Pacifism, or something stupid like Muzzle or Guard Duty.

I also want to share this deck that was drafted by one 'Kirblinx' (not sure who that is, but I assume they are from here), it is with the older double bounceland fixing, but the deck made me so happy.

BUG Lab Man Dredge from CubeTutor.com

Their comments:

First picked the Lab Maniac to see where it would take me. Decided to go on the dredge route after 2nd picking the Corpse Dance. The dredge package seems pretty sweet, I jusst don't know if it gives the Lab man a place to belong. There didn't seems to be that many other options to go with it. Deck seems like a blast to play though.

I would have liked to have seen at least one more way to bring back a milled Lab-maniac, but I suppose just beating down is a fine alternative (though not nearly as fun as buying time with Worms in order to self mill...)

 

[Laz]

So, just went through and ordered the cards for this one. Shipping and sleeves cost almost as much as the cards for this cube! Kor Spiritdancer carries the ignominious title of most expensive card in the cube, by quite a margin (over the pain-lands).

Now I just have to put together a cube cheat-sheet, since this cube is a little less than intuitive to draft without knowing the list intimately. Also, probably worth noting the rules interactions on this sheet. It will save a lot of time later. I mean, quick quiz, does Bestowing a creature trigger Prowess?

Spoiler

It does. Aura spell on the stack, not a creature.

In addition, it probably needs some notes on timings for madness, and the sequencing on triggered abilities on cycling. As well as a dot point to the effect of 'You know how in the ancient past graveyard order mattered? Well...'

I will update the first post with these notes once I have them together.

 

[Chris Taylor]

RE: Flashafism being too good, are there any sac effects?
Pacifism is really good in DTK limited but dimished slightly by the presence of exploit, which is an interesting dynamic

 

[Lucre]

I'm glad I finally got around to trying this, it looks fun, though i kinda wish the mana were a bit better and that fewer of the format gimmicks revolved around the heroic mechanic / sacrificing board position to be able to bounce permanents you control.

The ample six mana sweepers are a really interesting touch though.

If this was all some weird slight, it looks like you put a lot of effort into it so I appreciate the gesture anyway?

 

[Laz]

If this was all some weird slight, it looks like you put a lot of effort into it so I appreciate the gesture anyway?

If this were a slight, it is a seriously elaborate one. I think it would be far easy to just bulk upload 360 Old Fogey (although 360 copies of Blast from the Past actually offers an insane decision density).

Instead this simply took some concepts that you were oft-times talking about, spell velocity and cycling, and followed where they went. I mean, Heroic was certainly not the only direction that I could have followed (Token makers for go-wide was another concept I was entertaining), but I think that Prowess is super cool, and Heroic was a natural pairing for it. I also wanted to experiment a little with Heroic, and thought that this was an appropriate power level and overarching theme with which to try.

As for the sacrifice board position to be able to bounce permanents, there is very little of that (Emancipation Angel, Invasive Species and I suppose Jeskai Barricade). They are really in there as flex cards, designed to get more value out of early drops (Walls of 'Draw a card', Satyr Wayfinders, etc as well as getting rebuys on enchantments.

The 'sweepers' (in quotations, as they are mostly psuedo-sweepers) are actually spread pretty well between mana costs.

Spoiler: Sweepers

X - Starstorm
3 - Firespout
4 - Barter in Blood and Divine Reckoning (which I think is actually a super cool card in this cube, but also generally in lower power environments where creature-less control decks are not the norm)
5 - Shower of Coals
6 - Slice and Dice, Mizzium Mortars, Akroma's Vengeance

Now that I know of it's existence, Volcanic Vision might be a nice sweeper for the Red control archetype as well.

Anyways, thanks for stopping by Lucre. I am interesting in watching how your own project, based on Lucre-principles develops as well.

 

[Laz]

I probably should have been posting updates, since this has been drafted on and off for the last month. Forgive my laziness. I still haven't bothered to capture deck lists, so anecdotes will have to do.

I spent today in the 0-2 bracket (people had to head off), mostly because I am bad at speculating on what vertical aggro can do with lots of cards in hand. I lost a match against GW Auras to 'I have a blocker, and they probably don't have 9 points of pump in hand.'

Spoiler

They did. And 1 (2 with Prowess) points of it was Glaring Aegis...

All around me though there were awesome things happening. Whispers of the Muse with Young Pyromancer and Guttersnipe in play... 11 counters from Grave Strength (I didn't play around that either). Swings with Charmbreaker Devils for 20, it was a joy. Aggro wasn't really a force this evening, which meant that all of the mid-range and control decks got to grind value against each other, and grind value they did. I saw the same Ghoultree come into play 3 times in one game. Auto-hammer came online (and proved mediocre...), Spirit Cairn and Lightning Rift did great things.

Overall I have been very happy, though I am getting tempted to take a Sharpie to those last two cards. Randomly grinding value on what the other deck is doing is kind of meh. They are powerful enough when you draft around them without the opponent giving you a helping hand.

 

[blacksmithy]

This was one of the most fun drafts I've ever had on CT.
Jund Lightning Rift/Reanimator: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/340991
I tried to build around Lightning Rift and Guttersnipe, and ended up with this monster. It feels like Modern Living End, but as a gnarly sideways draft archetype instead of a linear combo deck. I kept thinking about that one Modern video where LSV is like "ooh I'm gonna cast my Jungle Weaver soon" and giggling. 10/10 would draft again.

 

[Laz]

Thanks for drafting it Blacksmithy. (Also Quanta!) Just a head's up when drafting, we use 4 packs of 11, with 6 players (so 5 bots). You ended up a few cards short, since you went 3 packs of 11 for 8 drafters.

I am really glad you had fun drafting it. I am currently really digging this environment, everything just kind of gels, and that fact that so many cards are essentially multi-modal adds so much depth to games. Land sequencing is awesome here as well (Thanks Grillo for inspiring all of the internal-mana-base synergies), and using bounce lands to trade cycling lands for cards late in the game is currently everyone's favourite 'trick'. I am really enjoying the strong reanimation in this Cube too, and from the look of your deck, you were too. I think it is like 'Fair Tinker', powerful effects, weak targets. Reanimating cycling creatures like Jungle Weaver doesn't break the game, but it does make you feel like you have puzzled something out. This cube is just so Johnny/Spike...

I suspect a closer examination of the cycling lands distribution (at the moment, everyone just gets one of the 'Cycling: C' and one of the 'Cycling: ' lands in each colour) might be required as in the drafts yesterday everyone just jammed all the cycling lands that were on-colour. This may have been unique to this draft though; since as I said, it was a mid-range fest.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Did you feel like the cycling lands could get to the point where they are main cube worthy?

 

[Laz]

The cycling lands do a lot of things, and are especially good with Spirit Cairn and Lightning Rift, but I am concerned about the space that they would take up in the cube. It is pretty hard to justify non-colour fixing lands (the utility lands currently in the cube (Nantuko Monastery, Loothouse, Everyone-discards-house, Zombie-House and Haunted-house) tend to wheel a bit anyway). I imagine that as cards, they might be worth a pick (since getting playables is not such a huge deal), but I feel that slots are too precious here.

I suspect that people were playing them simply because they could, but their decks wouldn't have been significantly worse without them. They help with consistency, and play well with Threshold and Bounce-lands, but they are never the stars, always the supporting cast. I am tempted in fact to go the other way, and just throw them in the basic land box. Not because I think it is a good idea, but because I am interested to see what the threshold is before they actively start harming your deck. I doubt any deck really wants more than 4-6 (and 6 is only if you can leverage a bunch of synergies out them, or you are not running other tapped lands), but then again I am not an expert on mana-bases.

 

[blacksmithy]

Tried drafting again and it was again amazing. http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/342036
I went UW control after a P1P1 Eternal Dragon and P1P2 Treasure Cruise. There was one pick in either the second or third pack where I was severely torn between Man-O-War, Moorland Haunt, and Akroma's Vengeance... But I took the Vengeance because good Wraths are hard to find (just in general, that wasn't meant as an insult to the Cube).
I ended up splashing Red in Pack 2, and got a late Young Pyromancer (!) and Lab Maniac (!!!!!), thus confirming my growing desire to just cycle everything and cast every cantrip until my deck is dry and my board is full of tokens. Also, I got great fixing. One thing I wonder, though, is with all the Plainscyclers and such, maybe having the Shocklands in here would be fun? Idk.
EDIT: On a second look at my deck, it's more like UR control splashing White.

 

[quanta]

Thanks for drafting it Blacksmithy. (Also Quanta!) Just a head's up when drafting, we use 4 packs of 11, with 6 players (so 5 bots). You ended up a few cards short, since you went 3 packs of 11 for 8 drafters.

I am really glad you had fun drafting it. I am currently really digging this environment, everything just kind of gels, and that fact that so many cards are essentially multi-modal adds so much depth to games. Land sequencing is awesome here as well (Thanks Grillo for inspiring all of the internal-mana-base synergies), and using bounce lands to trade cycling lands for cards late in the game is currently everyone's favourite 'trick'. I am really enjoying the strong reanimation in this Cube too, and from the look of your deck, you were too. I think it is like 'Fair Tinker', powerful effects, weak targets. Reanimating cycling creatures like Jungle Weaver doesn't break the game, but it does make you feel like you have puzzled something out. This cube is just so Johnny/Spike...

I suspect a closer examination of the cycling lands distribution (at the moment, everyone just gets one of the 'Cycling: C' and one of the 'Cycling: ' lands in each colour) might be required as in the drafts yesterday everyone just jammed all the cycling lands that were on-colour. This may have been unique to this draft though; since as I said, it was a mid-range fest.

I agree. I like your fair reanimator. I seem to be unable to keep myself from drafting it... One thing I can't figure out though is whether it would brutally overpower the more tempo-ish jeskai decks I've been making or if they'd stomp it before it did anything at all. God forbid I might actually have to play some games.

 

[Laz]

One thing I wonder, though, is with all the Plainscyclers and such, maybe having the Shocklands in here would be fun? Idk.

Yeah, I feel this. A couple of pages ago there was a lot of discussion around fixing cycles, and this point came up. I want the land cycling guys to have some more utility than they currently do, but I really like the current mana-base. There are enough internal synergies to make land sequencing and the like very interesting, and the shocklands kind of break up that interplay. I am pretty sure that the only cards in the cube which refer to basic land types are those land cyclers though, so I could easily add basic land types to, say, the cycle of gainlands without upsetting any plans.

As always appreciate the drafts. I need to play this one more before I start tweaking, and as quanta mentioned, it is difficult to see if there is an overpowered strategy just from decklists, there are too many moving parts.

 

[Laz]

Finally managed to draft a 3-0 deck! Turns out I am pretty bad at this cube, with my last couple of results being 0-3, 1-2, 1-2, 0-3, but I turned it all around!

Grixis Tempo-control

Deck was value-train all around, with Mizzium Mortars the super star, but Mercurial Chemister not far behind. They just allowed me to extend games, and grind out wins. Mercurial Chemister drew 8 cards in one of them, which made it difficult to lose.
I even got to Snakeform a pesky large creature before overloading Mortars for maximum value (9 mana, why not?).
While I had a lot of tools against more aggressive decks and more mid-rangey decks, I think I was a little lucky to dodge heavy-graveyard decks, which would have laughed somewhat at all of my removal.

Play of the night: A loss occurred for a UW Heroic/Auras deck when a Bestowed Observant Alseid was answered by a Redirect, into an Aura Gnarlid...