The ISDODYAKH Set Cube

[henkdetenk]

Hey, long time lurker here, I figured I'd take the plunge and post my cube for nitpicking and updates here.

The Isdodyakh set cube

So, this is the most recent evolution of my long line of graveyard-centric cubes. I call it the ISD-ODY-AKH cube, because Innistrad, Odyssey and Amonkhet are the sets I've drawn most of my inspiration from. I've gone and broken singleton and turned the cube into a "set" cube, consisting of three copies of each common, and one of each rare and uncommon. I ended up going this direction, because I wanted a new challenge, and because it makes the draft a lot more streamlined for newer players (No more reading 350 unique cards, yay!). It does make drafting on cubecobra kind of weird, though, because it'll just toss in all the rares and uncommons at random, but it is what it is.

Design goals/restrictions:

• Graveyard interaction is the central theme across the cube.
• Built to be drafted it with seeded packs: 11 commons/3 uncommons/1 rare.
• Old school color pie: You won't find blue creatures with more than 3 power, removal in green, draw in white, etc.
• Limiting keywords to keep drafts streamlined for newer players and to keep the set vibe. (Cycling, Flashback, Threshold, Embalm/Eternalize, Flanking)
• Archetype specific payoffs are generally at uncommon or rare to make most commons playable in most decks.
• Focus on synergy rather than individually powerful cards.
• No ETB effects. We die like men.

Speed:

Slow like molasses in January. All colors have access to a good number of one and two-drops, but the power of said creatures is generally low. They tend to be either utility or engine pieces, like Groundskeeper, rather than aggressive creatures. I've kept the curve on the lower end because I loathe having nothing to do on my early turns. That and it makes Chainflinger an absolute powerhouse, which I find hilarious.

Power:

This project was born out of my first love, Odyssey block, and trying to figure out how to make enough cards from that ancient, low powered set playable. So, I devised a rule that I test all cards by. I call it the White-Threshold-Must-Be-Playable rule. If cards make drafting a Battlewise Aven or Mystic Familiar look like a bad option because they're more powerful, they get the axe. Uncommons and rares are the exception to this, allowing for a rare bomb like Curator of Mysteries to feel like a big splashy rare that will decide games. Conversely, limiting uncommons and rares to singleton greatly lowers the overal powerlevel of the cube while allowing me to give clear draft signposts to players.

The lower powerlevel has also allowed me to add unplayable, synergistic jank that's actually quite powerful in this enviroment. Cards like Icatian Crier, Dawnstrider or Dirty Wererat pull some serious weight, and I would never have considered running them in a regular cube if I hadn't hit the brakes on power.

Archetypes:

I've foregone building in true archetypes, I've instead opted to add a whole host of synergistic cards that work well in a large number of decks, combined with keywords and mechanics that overlap in (usually) at least three colors. That means that most color combinations can focus on one or two archetypes (ie if you don't get cycling payoffs in dimir, you're perfectly fine going the threshold route instead), and end up with a functional deck. Incidental cycling cards can be played in self mill, self mill can be played in flashback decks, looting and rummaging can be played in embalm, etc.

The lone exception to all of this is Boros, which is the fun police, as the primary aggro color combination to break up durdly value engines, with easy and plentiful access to cheap, powerful creatures with flanking and first strike, and red has access to exile removal (Pillar of Flame, Incendiary Oracle, etc.) to put a damper on graveyard engines and recursion. Incidentally, it's perfectly viable to play boros as a bizarre flashback/recursion/threshold deck as well, as we saw in one draft. So you do you.

Doubts:

So I've only drafted it a few times IRL, and I really don't have a clear picture yet on whether or not the rares I've picked are simply too powerful (Cryptbreaker, Drake Haven), whether or not the curve is too low or not, and if I should add more graveyard hate. I already got some feedback saying that in this enviroment, graveyard hate cards are never sideboard fodder, but easy mainboard cards. If you have any tips or advice, please share! I need all the help I can get.

 

[ravnic]

I love this. You happen to have picked three of my favorite blocks for cube of all time.

Could you elaborate why you decided for a strict "no etbs" policy?

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

this shit rocks i have no notes please tell me how the fuck you pronounce "Isdodyakh" when you talk about this cube out loud

 

[henkdetenk]

I love this. You happen to have picked three of my favorite blocks for cube of all time.

Could you elaborate why you decided for a strict "no etbs" policy?

I know, right? I just wanted to build a cube where I could reliably rebuild my stupid Nimble Mongoose/Werebear deck when I was in highschool.

Well, I noticed from previous cubes that ETB creatures really speed up the game, and it made people prioritize ETB creatures over creatures with activated/tap abilities, and it made instants and sorceries weaker in comparison. Like, I had Greenseeker in my previous cube, but nobody ever picked it because it was too slow. It essentially caused older creatures from Masques or Odyssey to be seen as too slow or weak. The only exceptions to the rule right now are Scrapwork Mutt and Cartographer. Scrapwork Mutt because I don't mind red having a speed boost, and Cartographer because it gave me the nostalgia.

this shit rocks i have no notes please tell me how the fuck you pronounce "Isdodyakh" when you talk about this cube out loud

Thanks! Is-Dody-Yak is how I pronounce it.

 

[alvoi]

Okay this is CRAZY because I started a new Cube project very recently (like, I are talking about this last week) and the main theme of the Cube I am trying to build right now is: threshold/madness/flashback but power level low enough to make things like Battlewise Aven viable. And I even arrived at the same realisation that the W/U theme should be eternalize/embalm and stuff like that.

I have not chosen yet how to do my Cube, if singleton or some kind of "rarity seed" where common cards are in 3x and uncommon ones are in 1x. And obviously you did it this way! So like, there are incredibly many similarities that is very promising! And makes me want to go on with my project as well. For now, I am still undecided on the technicalities, but... I have some card suggestions!

First of all also, sorry, are you sure you want the cycling subtheme? Like, I started by thinking that cycling HAD to be one of the main themes and mechanics of my Cube, but sometimes when I was looking at the cards it felt a bit off, because it is slightly out of flavour and synergy. Odyssey block cares about the graveyard and you need "real enablers" to put things into the graveyard, while cycling cards feel more like "too easy to do". Like, if you have an Oketra's Attendant in hand and a Wild Mongrel in play, you would never discard it to the Mongrel, but if the card in your hand was an Unwavering Initiate, the effect of the Mongrel would be better. In some way, the presence of cycling cards in the Cube is making some other cards become weaker, and I don't know if that is good. Like, I am still very undecided for my own Cube! I went forth and back with adding cycling cards and removing them so many times! For now though, I think I want not to have them, so maybe you want to reflect on this as well.

For the topic of graveyard hate, I decided that in my Cube I want only two kinds of graveyard hate: one-shot one-card graveyard hate (like Leonin of the Lost Pride or Jack-o'-Lantern) or repeatable graveyard hate with a cost (like Malevolent Chandelier or Graven Abomination). I want to avoid things like Tormod's Crypt or Rest in Peace, clearly. Looking at your list, maybe you don't have enough hate, though. I feel like a bit of that is very useful, because no card can become too much oppressive.

Card suggestions: I have to say I like the flanking theme, even though it feels a bit out of place. But it is nice and I maybe should consider it as well. My main idea for the white colour was to have a lot of things with embalm and eternalize, but not only: also cards like Fairgrounds Patrol and Battle Screech and Cenn's Enlistment with some token payoffs! Since all embalm and eternalize tokens are... well, tokens! There is also the possibility of a Zombie subtheme since all embalm and eternalize tokens are Zombies. Intangible Virtue and Phantom General could work well. There is also the disturb mechanic from MID, that is in the same colours as embalm and eternalize, and makes Spirits, and there are many ways to have Spirits or create Spirit tokens, so there could be some other tribal theme etc... so yeah a lot of things to think about! (In my project I have the half-idea of putting Soulshift (yeah the Kamigawa mechanic) as a WGb theme and I need somebody to convince me it is a bad idea)

I like also the idea of putting some of those card that synergise with "the opponent has 8+ cards in their graveyard" from ZNR (like Blackbloom Rogue or Anticognition) just because I love the idea of a gamestate where I have to make sure I have at least 7 cards in the graveyard for threshold, but not more than 7 because otherwise the cards of my opponent become too strong. But maybe this is too fancy as an idea ahah.

As for the tricoloured lands, instead of the ones you chose, I would put the ones by MH3, since they also even have cycling! That's synergy! Unless you want to remove cycling from the Cube, of course.

It is almost 2 am where I live but I love the topic so maybe I will come back for more comments! I am happy you decided to open this thread!

 

[henkdetenk]

Hey, thanks for the comment! What are the odds, lol.

I have not chosen yet how to do my Cube, if singleton or some kind of "rarity seed" where common cards are in 3x and uncommon ones are in 1x. And obviously you did it this way! So like, there are incredibly many similarities that is very promising! And makes me want to go on with my project as well. For now, I am still undecided on the technicalities, but... I have some card suggestions!

Well, another reason why I chose to go the 3 commons route is, in part, because of Embalm and Eternalize. There are only 10 embalm/eternalize cards in white (of which I only really want to play 7 or 8) and 8 in blue (of which I really only want 6), and in both colors half of those creatures are rare or uncommon. Of course there's two multicolored creatures, again at rare or uncommon, but at singleton it didn't feel like that was enough to support the archetype to justify including the multicolor cards and Vizier of the Anointed.

First of all also, sorry, are you sure you want the cycling subtheme? Like, I started by thinking that cycling HAD to be one of the main themes and mechanics of my Cube, but sometimes when I was looking at the cards it felt a bit off, because it is slightly out of flavour and synergy. Odyssey block cares about the graveyard and you need "real enablers" to put things into the graveyard, while cycling cards feel more like "too easy to do". Like, if you have an Oketra's Attendant in hand and a Wild Mongrel in play, you would never discard it to the Mongrel, but if the card in your hand was an Unwavering Initiate, the effect of the Mongrel would be better. In some way, the presence of cycling cards in the Cube is making some other cards become weaker, and I don't know if that is good. Like, I am still very undecided for my own Cube! I went forth and back with adding cycling cards and removing them so many times! For now though, I think I want not to have them, so maybe you want to reflect on this as well.

I've had a lot of gripes with it too. Cycling is difficult, mainly because of white. White lacks any real way of self milling to get to Threshold other than discarding your hand, so Cycling is a decent crutch to get there without giving up card advantage, because it's basically a rummage stapled to a card. It allows White to play nice with discard payoffs in black, like Grisly Survivor and Pitiless Vizier, or blue with Zenith Seeker or Curator of Mysteries. The problem is that neither blue nor black actually need another color to get their payoffs to trigger because they have plenty of looting or discard outlets of themselves, while cycling in white mostly serves to enable other colors' payoffs.

The biggest issue with cycling in white is that half of its own cycling payofs from Ikoria don't synergise with discard, only with cycling, so it's all one-way traffic towards other colors, because cycling payoffs in UB are also discard payoffs (ie Curator of Mysteries). In terms of just discard payoffs, white really only has Spirit Cairn and Confessor, both of which are picked up very rapidly by any color with discard (Or any deck with white, the old "any player" clause really does a lot of work in this enviroment). The big daddy of white cycling, Astral Slide, isn't even in the cube, because there are no ETBs to abuse, so at best it would just act like a fog effect if you use it to blink attackers.

Removing some cycling in black and white would open up more space for flashback spells, and getting rid of most of it in white would open up some design space, but I'll need to test the cube a few more times to be sure. I'm getting two drafts in, hopefully, in a few weeks, then I'll have some more data. Up till now, the white cycling spells have kind of been used as the mechanic was originally intended when wizards designed it, just as a way to get rid of a card that wasn't relevant at the moment.

For the topic of graveyard hate, I decided that in my Cube I want only two kinds of graveyard hate: one-shot one-card graveyard hate (like Leonin of the Lost Pride or Jack-o'-Lantern) or repeatable graveyard hate with a cost (like Malevolent Chandelier or Graven Abomination). I want to avoid things like Tormod's Crypt or Rest in Peace, clearly. Looking at your list, maybe you don't have enough hate, though. I feel like a bit of that is very useful, because no card can become too much oppressive.

Agreed, I don't think I have enough. I'm fine with repeatable graveyard hate, if it hits a single card, but nuking graveyards will just be too strong overal. I like Graven Abomination: colorless, will usually only hit one card in the graveyard. I'll find a spot for it. Jack-o'-Lantern might be nice if I go down the delirium route. Thraben Heretic might work too.

I like also the idea of putting some of those card that synergise with "the opponent has 8+ cards in their graveyard" from ZNR (like Blackbloom Rogue or Anticognition) just because I love the idea of a gamestate where I have to make sure I have at least 7 cards in the graveyard for threshold, but not more than 7 because otherwise the cards of my opponent become too strong. But maybe this is too fancy as an idea ahah.

Anticognition is pretty funny, might give it a shot. I'm not really fond of the what your opponent is doing with their graveyard part though, in part because a lot of those cards also mill your opponents, but that's probably personal preference.

Card suggestions: I have to say I like the flanking theme, even though it feels a bit out of place. But it is nice and I maybe should consider it as well. My main idea for the white colour was to have a lot of things with embalm and eternalize, but not only: also cards like Fairgrounds Patrol and Battle Screech and Cenn's Enlistment with some token payoffs! Since all embalm and eternalize tokens are... well, tokens! There is also the possibility of a Zombie subtheme since all embalm and eternalize tokens are Zombies. Intangible Virtue and Phantom General could work well. There is also the disturb mechanic from MID, that is in the same colours as embalm and eternalize, and makes Spirits, and there are many ways to have Spirits or create Spirit tokens, so there could be some other tribal theme etc... so yeah a lot of things to think about! (In my project I have the half-idea of putting Soulshift (yeah the Kamigawa mechanic) as a WGb theme and I need somebody to convince me it is a bad idea)

I went heavily into Flanking because it's only found (mostly) in red and white, and because the majority of creatures in the cube are only 1 or 2 toughness, making creatures with Flanking a real pain to block. Boros is really meant to keep slower durdle decks in check.

I actually had an Intangible Virtue in the cube before! It works well with all the zombie tokens. If the anthems are in white, they can cover zombies made in WU, or the Bear/Elephant/Wurm tokens in WG. Interesting. I tried to make zombies a theme before, but decided against it, because I didn't want to support just one tribe, but tokens as a blanket theme could work. It would also make Aven Wind guide and Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun a lot better, while making embalm stronger.

I'll need to give the "exile from graveyard to make tokens" cards some thought. They're a clear nonbo with Threshold, but they fit the Embalm theme. Nearheath Chaplain is another solid example.

As for the tricoloured lands, instead of the ones you chose, I would put the ones by MH3, since they also even have cycling! That's synergy! Unless you want to remove cycling from the Cube, of course.

Oh, nice catch, don't know how I missed those!

 

[alvoi]

Well, another reason why I chose to go the 3 commons route is, in part, because of Embalm and Eternalize. There are only 10 embalm/eternalize cards in white (of which I only really want to play 7 or 8) and 8 in blue (of which I really only want 6), and in both colors half of those creatures are rare or uncommon. Of course there's two multicolored creatures, again at rare or uncommon, but at singleton it didn't feel like that was enough to support the archetype to justify including the multicolor cards and Vizier of the Anointed.

Yes, that is right. I have to admit, I have not gone with my hands into the card research, but I wanted to decide the general themes and restrictions beforehand. But it is true that there are not many cards with embalm and eternalize. It is also true that maybe there is no "big need" for a high density of those effects, like, I don't think that to call a deck an "embalm deck" there is the need that every or almost every creature in the deck has the embalm/eternalize mechanic.

This is also why I was considering adding also cards with disturb, because they have a similar design space, and provide more variance: instead of having three Sacred Cats and three Anointer Priests, you could have one of each of those and also one of Lunarch Veteran, Drogskol Infantry, Beloved Beggar and Chaplain of Alms. Like, I do not want to critique your choice, and probably the route you followed is better from an entry-point/low-complexity mechanic-wise thing, but I feel it is nice to have other viewpoints.

By the way, another card we missed: Moorland Haunt. It's perfect!

I've had a lot of gripes with it too. Cycling is difficult, mainly because of white. White lacks any real way of self milling to get to Threshold other than discarding your hand, so Cycling is a decent crutch to get there without giving up card advantage, because it's basically a rummage stapled to a card. It allows White to play nice with discard payoffs in black, like Grisly Survivor and Pitiless Vizier, or blue with Zenith Seeker or Curator of Mysteries. The problem is that neither blue nor black actually need another color to get their payoffs to trigger because they have plenty of looting or discard outlets of themselves, while cycling in white mostly serves to enable other colors' payoffs.

The biggest issue with cycling in white is that half of its own cycling payofs from Ikoria don't synergise with discard, only with cycling, so it's all one-way traffic towards other colors, because cycling payoffs in UB are also discard payoffs (ie Curator of Mysteries). In terms of just discard payoffs, white really only has Spirit Cairn and Confessor, both of which are picked up very rapidly by any color with discard (Or any deck with white, the old "any player" clause really does a lot of work in this enviroment). The big daddy of white cycling, Astral Slide, isn't even in the cube, because there are no ETBs to abuse, so at best it would just act like a fog effect if you use it to blink attackers.

Removing some cycling in black and white would open up more space for flashback spells, and getting rid of most of it in white would open up some design space, but I'll need to test the cube a few more times to be sure. I'm getting two drafts in, hopefully, in a few weeks, then I'll have some more data. Up till now, the white cycling spells have kind of been used as the mechanic was originally intended when wizards designed it, just as a way to get rid of a card that wasn't relevant at the moment.

The colour white is the hardest part also for me, and this is the reason why I was considering a bit of tribal support, outside of the token support. Because if I put some Zombie support and some Spirit support and some token support in white, the main themes of the colour can be those, and not much graveyard synergy. But again, maybe this is against the spirit of a "Ody-Isd-Akh" cube, that should be gravecentric.

For cycling, I would just drop it. Probably you can get away with having no (or close to no) threshold enablers in white, looking at the fact that blue, black and green are incredibly good at doing it (cfr Mulch, Armored Skaab and Corpse Churn), while the W/R deck doesn't really need threshold support anyway. This way you can transform a weakness of the colour to something that forces the drafter to find stuff that synergises with the cards they have.

I love the cycling mechanic, by the way, I am only worried that it could become too much dominant, seen the power level of the Cube. And yeah, cards like Confessor and Spirit Cairn are weird and have the same problem as the Blackbloom Rogue I was suggesting... they feel like they get stronger if the opponent is able to "go off" with their deck, so the best strategy against those cards becomes not to play, that is kinda bad for a Cube where the main goal is to play Magic...

Agreed, I don't think I have enough. I'm fine with repeatable graveyard hate, if it hits a single card, but nuking graveyards will just be too strong overal. I like Graven Abomination: colorless, will usually only hit one card in the graveyard. I'll find a spot for it. Jack-o'-Lantern might be nice if I go down the delirium route. Thraben Heretic might work too.

Yeahh Graven Abomination is lovely! I think having gravehate in colourless is a good way to go since this way every deck can have it. Cards like Crossroads Candleguide and Swiftgear Drake may not look powerful or appealing, but sometimes they are the right curve filler with an ability that in a Cube like this does not have to be underextimated!

I went heavily into Flanking because it's only found (mostly) in red and white, and because the majority of creatures in the cube are only 1 or 2 toughness, making creatures with Flanking a real pain to block. Boros is really meant to keep slower durdle decks in check.

That is right, I have to admit, I didn't think of that problem, and maybe in my own Cube-project right now I have no fast aggressive deck (besides U/W embalm if you want to see it as an aggressive deck ahah). My idea for R/W was to imitate the Lorehold campus from Strixhaven, so cards like Quintorius, Field Historian, Stonebound Mentor, Stonerise Spirit, Thrilling Discovery, Pilgrim of the Ages, Illustrious Historian...

I actually had an Intangible Virtue in the cube before! It works well with all the zombie tokens. If the anthems are in white, they can cover zombies made in WU, or the Bear/Elephant/Wurm tokens in WG. Interesting. I tried to make zombies a theme before, but decided against it, because I didn't want to support just one tribe, but tokens as a blanket theme could work. It would also make Aven Wind guide and Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun a lot better, while making embalm stronger.

I also didn't want Zombies to be the only tribe, that's why I was thinking of putting both Zombies and Spirits, but I am also not 100% on it

 

[henkdetenk]

Yes, that is right. I have to admit, I have not gone with my hands into the card research, but I wanted to decide the general themes and restrictions beforehand. But it is true that there are not many cards with embalm and eternalize. It is also true that maybe there is no "big need" for a high density of those effects, like, I don't think that to call a deck an "embalm deck" there is the need that every or almost every creature in the deck has the embalm/eternalize mechanic.

This is also why I was considering adding also cards with disturb, because they have a similar design space, and provide more variance: instead of having three Sacred Cats and three Anointer Priests, you could have one of each of those and also one of Lunarch Veteran, Drogskol Infantry, Beloved Beggar and Chaplain of Alms. Like, I do not want to critique your choice, and probably the route you followed is better from an entry-point/low-complexity mechanic-wise thing, but I feel it is nice to have other viewpoints.

You're right, if they just produce tokens from the graveyard, they'll function just fine. The only card that actually cares about the words Embalm or Eternalize is Vizier of the anointed. For me it's a combination of factors, though. I want to keep a certain feel, theme and level of complexity. I draft with a core of 3-4 EDH players, and the rest are people who usually only play boardgames. It's beginner friendly, sleek, and thematic. I don't judge you or any other cube curator for going singleton, mind. That's what my other cubes have always been too.

Also, yes, Moorland Haunt is perfect!

The colour white is the hardest part also for me, and this is the reason why I was considering a bit of tribal support, outside of the token support. Because if I put some Zombie support and some Spirit support and some token support in white, the main themes of the colour can be those, and not much graveyard synergy. But again, maybe this is against the spirit of a "Ody-Isd-Akh" cube, that should be gravecentric.

If I'm going to support tribes, I feel I should support them in every color, and that's not really something I'm interested in. They were the least interesting aspect of Innistrad for me, other than the flavor of humans up against everything that goes bump in the night. I understand if you do go that way, though. If the powerlevel is low enough, I can easily see kamigawa spirits being interesting too.

For cycling, I would just drop it. Probably you can get away with having no (or close to no) threshold enablers in white, looking at the fact that blue, black and green are incredibly good at doing it (cfr Mulch, Armored Skaab and Corpse Churn), while the W/R deck doesn't really need threshold support anyway. This way you can transform a weakness of the colour to something that forces the drafter to find stuff that synergises with the cards they have.

I love the cycling mechanic, by the way, I am only worried that it could become too much dominant, seen the power level of the Cube. And yeah, cards like Confessor and Spirit Cairn are weird and have the same problem as the Blackbloom Rogue I was suggesting... they feel like they get stronger if the opponent is able to "go off" with their deck, so the best strategy against those cards becomes not to play, that is kinda bad for a Cube where the main goal is to play Magic...

I'm contemplating cutting it from white, but I want to get more playtesting data from the current build before I do. I can reduce the presence of it in other colors, but I like the versatility it gives, mainly for fixing.

Yeahh Graven Abomination is lovely! I think having gravehate in colourless is a good way to go since this way every deck can have it. Cards like Crossroads Candleguide and Swiftgear Drake may not look powerful or appealing, but sometimes they are the right curve filler with an ability that in a Cube like this does not have to be underextimated!

Colorless is likely a safe bet. And Swiftgear Drake is pretty good in terms of powerlevel for my cube. It is an ETB effect, though, which I'm not overly fond of.

That is right, I have to admit, I didn't think of that problem, and maybe in my own Cube-project right now I have no fast aggressive deck (besides U/W embalm if you want to see it as an aggressive deck ahah). My idea for R/W was to imitate the Lorehold campus from Strixhaven, so cards like Quintorius, Field Historian, Stonebound Mentor, Stonerise Spirit, Thrilling Discovery, Pilgrim of the Ages, Illustrious Historian...

I had a "leaves the graveyard" subtheme in Mardu colors in my previous cube. The black cards are still in.


It worked really well, especially if there's enough flashback, embalm or unearth (Or Squee. Always bet on Squee.). The problem is that Boros is my aggro pairing, so giving them multicolor stuff like Quintorius felt kind of weird to my drafters, but it gave Boros something other to do than beat face.

 

[henkdetenk]

So I gave the cube a minor overhaul this week just in time to test it with a 4 man draft! The main changes were to support token strategies more, and to reduce the amount of cycling present in the cube. Below are the biggest changes I've made, besides some smaller adjustments in the common slots. Lucky for me I pretty much just had these lying around. That and the list I had up on cubecobra wasn't fully up to date, so I fixed it

Major adjustments:

>
The fox was far too narrow, and only really served to shoehorn you into drafting cycling, and cycling alone. Intangible virtue supports a lot of color combinations that also happen to incidentally produce tokens.

>
Same story here. While Phantom General only supports tokens, which is somewhat narrow, tokens are quite plentiful thanks to embalm and the like, it's less parasitic than I imagined.

>
The biggest change was reintroducting Quintorius and the "leaves the graveyard" support cards in boros, and mardu as a whole. Luckily, this one showed up in the draft right away, allowing me to see first hand what he's capable of. Conversely, Reassembling skeleton is a nice sticky creature, but since I don't support aristocrats (yet?), its value is diminished. Sanitarium Skeleton is far more synergistic because it returns to hand to discard.

>
Izzet has enough incentive to play it with Jilt (3x) in the multicolor slot. Stonebound Mentor might be too much support in Boros with two gold cards, but time will tell.

>
Again, I don't support aristocrats, so recurring a 1cmc creature each turn with Abiding Grace is not as interesting as it should be. The chaplain produces tokens and provides a way to stabilize in control decks splashing white.

>
I hate ETB effects, and Masked Admirers is far more versatile in multiple types of decks.

(3x) > (3x)
More graveyard hate is required, and placing it in colorless gives every deck access to it, rather than just black or green. Fun part is it can be used to fuel cards like Quintorius as well. Also serves to give Green and Red access to flying to deal with White Blue and Black's more common fliers.

(3x) > (3x)
I don't have enough artifacts in the cube to make Myr Retriever a worthwhile pick, and its power isn't what it should be without dedicated sac outlets. On the upside, Graven Abomination is colorless graveyard hate. I assume it won't get more than one attack in, so usually one card exiled, but it has potential for more.

Draft:

WB tokens/recursion

Our resident aggro player wound up building a grindy value deck. Crypt Breaker, Icatian Crier and Tormod the Desecrator managed to pump out a ridiculous number of tokens. We were all extremely pleased he didn't get his hands on Intangible Virtue or Phantom General. There was enough removal to keep the game in check until the engine came online, unfortunately for my friend, he was fully flooded two games, which meant we didn't fully see what the deck would have been capable of.

BUR Fliers

All in drafting every flier he could get his hands on. Both Fledgling dragon and Curator of Mysteries, coupled with both Boneshard Slasher and Childhood Horror was absolutely backbreaking for the rest of us. Though the dirty wererats were, somehow, the most valuable cards in his deck, putting on a surprising amount of pressure combined with the twins of maurer estate. Went unbeaten.

GUB self mill/discard

Well, the Waterfront Bouncer + Groundskeeper combo was unexpectedly powerful in games devoid of ETB creatures and helped me stabilize. Thornwind Faeries was very good at disrupting engines and killing value pieces like Crypt Breaker or just random tokens, much better than I anticipated. The splash into black for Sanitarium Skeleton and Phyrexian Delver was probably a mistake on my end, should have opted for more self mill to get my Werebears online faster and to get more value out of Bearscape, but I stubbornly held on to black after the first pack. I did alright, but feel like I definitely made some mistakes.

RW tokens

Quintorius is a house. Embalming something and getting an additional token from Quintorius was very powerful. Without Quintorius, the deck still functioned, but a lot less so. If there had been more token support or leaves the graveyard effects, the deck would likely have been a lot more consistent. The curve was still low enough, however, to steal a few wins. Also, Chainflinger is the bane of my existence.

First Impressions:

This was only a four man draft, so the results are likely very lopsided, because the card pool was quite a bit smaller than what I designed for, and we didn't get that many games in.

I'm known in my playgroup for heavily favoring engines and synergy, and I'm happy to see that reflected in the decks that were drafted. I was pleased to see how easily cards overlap in fit into various decks, though I might have leaned into the "discard for value" archetype a bit too heavily. Time will tell, I'll get another draft in, 6 or 8 man, in next month. Fingers crossed.