The Penny Pincher Cube (360)

Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

I'm pretty unconvinced about glint and triton tactics, I find them pretty unexciting, but see how they play out.
Going down to one ponder seems good.
Excited to see glasshulk!
I like elusive spellfist, but mistfire adept seems better in more decks. Is there an alternative swap?

Other thoughts

Regress just looks so bad next to the two resounding waves. I guess it's there to punish bouncelands (which I'm not sure is a good thing). Is there anything better/different?

I'm wondering if there are enough mana sinks? When you have six bouncelands you really want something to do with all that mana.

Also, what do you think about

 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
That looks really good.

Since I added in the glassdust, I figured I could cut one of the rusted relics, and sneaked in an icy manipulator. Icy can tap down bouncelands, but that looks really strong.

I also made a few other tweeks where it came to doubles

-1 abundant growth, +1 nylea's presence
-1 faith's fetters, +1 exile
-1 voyaging satyr, +1 magus of the candelabra

I've not had issues with mana sinks, but I haven't really picked the list apart in regards to them. Auriok Salvagers and cycled resounding waves have been the most memorable.

I've really liked having the option to bounce the bouncelands as a form of disruption. Its much nicer than attacking them by outright blowing them up. I could cut one of the resounding waves and replace it with a rescind? That diversifies the picks a bit more, and adds a little more tension.

Which two blue heroic enablers do you find the most interesting?
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

I like the idea of rescind, but replace regress maybe? In respect to salvaging station, it's fun to play with but is pretty narrow potentially so might need a bit of consideration before committing to it.

I'm just looking through your uw heroic cards and trying to work out how the deck wins? You have to have all the white combat tricks probably? Traditionally you'd want some efficient aura or way to give evasion. Your reason for not including temur battle rage makes me wonder if that's why you wouldn't have things like



On reflection tactics and glint probably aren't that bad as conditional counters/combat tricks and more decks want them, I would have thought heroic wanted to be more aggressive and break through though.

Here are a couple of wacky ideas

 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I broke down and added the fetters and growth back in: I have a mild interest in trying to make the list singleton, but everytime I go in that direction, I feel like I have to run worse cards. I also don't like how exile can't hit fabled hero. I did cut one cloud of faeries for an elusive spellfist though, because cloud is just too hard to pass.

Originally, I was going to have more blue combat tricks, but had to cut them due to space issues that no longer exist. You are correct, I don't want to add cards like distortion strike or artful dodge because they will just kill people in the right decks. I really like glint: there are decks that want that effect in blue: but I don't really think I need triton tactics. I will probably end up cutting it for one of the cards you suggested.

Both decks I see as being more positional aggro: picking their spots, gaining card and board advantage off of heroic fueled combat tricks. Those decks can stand toe-to-toe with the best threats midrange can provide, and also outgrow most of the format's sweepers. The R/W varient has a lot more raw power, and it can mix in artifacts or horizontal aggro strategies to compliment its vertical growth strategy. The U/W varient has less raw power, is a little slower, but is more consistant, and has better disruptive tools. It can play a stronger long game.

Edit: Running Ghostly touch > triton tactics
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I absolutly love trinket mage in this cube, he is the king of utility.

Any thoughts on running cards like:



I know, I know, disruption by messing with people's lands isn't the most popular thing. However, acidic slime hasn't been back breaking, its just been disruptive. I think a lot of that is due to its CC, as people have time to develope their board.

Invader parasite seems interesting because not only can you can couple it with the existing land/artifact hate cards in green, blue, or white, but you can run it with white or blue blink effects as the centerpiece of a powerful disruptive strategy.

Petravark is much weaker, but super disruptive and invites a lot of interesting decisions for both players. If you grab a bounce land with it, and it dies, the bounceland's ETB will trigger, setting the bounceland player back no matter what. It requires each player to evaluate the value of the land, the ETB bounce, the 2/2 body, and whatever method is used to get rid of the petravark.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
So, I think we are getting to the point of wrapping this up. It feels strange to say that a cube is "finished" but I think I may be saying just that. The list feels tight, and plays great.

I made one last swap, which was turntimber grove for dread statuary and I have ophidian eye in for ghostly touch. I realized I wanted something aggressive that can move at instant speed, and eye can win games on its own if not addressed.

This is where we stand (in no particular order):

1. Maybe add 1-2 more red mana sinks and 1 more blue heroic trigger
2. add 10 scry lands, subtract 10 gain lands (once scry lands are cheap)
3. Maybe experiment with -10 gainlands +10 utility lands (don't feel this is really necessary)
4. Swap in and out multi-colored nudge cards as desired
5. Update cards as appropriate

My one regret is not being able to weave in another combo deck or two.

Tonight I was finally able to draft a metal craft deck, which was sweet.

Heroic Metalcraft Aggro










Yes, thats 14 lands, in an aggro deck with two double white cards, the blue half of stand // deliver (which yes, was cast), two 4 drops, a 5 drops, and the need to keep mana open for combat tricks. Mycosynth wellspring was what made the deck tick, letting me run a far lower land count, and higher curve than I otherwise would have. Most importantly, jor kadeen could be run in an aggro deck, rather than the usual midrange metalcraft builds he shows up in.

Those wellsprings are no joke. In this deck you could feed them to atog, or bounce them back and replay them with emancipation angel, or use them to keep metal craft active. I was actually entwining that grab the reins in multiple games. I was also getting lands out of my deck, which improved draw quality in long games.

This is the usual type of positional aggro with burst damage that I like to play. The great thing about this deck was that it could go both vertical or horizontal. This was also my first time really getting to play with Anax and Cymede, and wow what a card. Every part of the card was relevent, and there were a few tense games where I had to atttack in with the team, and bluff a blowout, to sneak in the damage I needed to win.

Saproling burst also showed up in the draft, and what a fun card. It was nice to see someone try to figure out an old school mtg math problem. Very skill intensive, but powerful, letting you take a horizontal or vertical damage approach, but introducing a super interesting timing puzzle to the game.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
So, this is super rough, but I've been toying with fusing the penny pincher cube's artifact and mana ramp themes with the lower power mill and graveyard interactions of the innistrad theme cube.

Here is the second draft.

Because the pincher cube uses a more module pillar based structure, there is no actual reason to have to break singleton, accept that I lacked enough material to fill a 360, which the graveyard based strategies should provide. We also found out from all of those drafts when it was the featured cube, that singleton bouncelands is fine, so no reason to break singleton there.

I'm experimenting with some pretty eccentric stuff here, which I will probably need a voice of reason to talk me out of. I wanted to experiement with some of the ideas that Chris:MTGO mentioned in the Lucre Cube thread, some of which I think I need a little help solidifying.



Of all of the cards, this is the one I'm most excited for. Traditionally, the problem with past in flames its expensive, so you kind of need to run rituals to back it up, which creates all sorts of other problems in terms of poison principle, fun combo, and cube space. I think bouncelands solve all of these problems, as you can generate obscene amounts of mana with them, enabling past in flames fueled shenanigans.



This is pretty greedy I feel, but with the slightly slower aggro decks, and a generally lower power world, maybe necro can actually overcome its limitations and be fair, in a world where the cards aren't completly insane coming off the top.



This card is super interesting in a graveyard based world, as the warrior synergy makes it a powerful piece in a disruptive aggro deck.



This is another card that I could see being obscene in conjunction with bouncelands.



This is probably a mistep, but a set of mana accelerant golems that provide sac. triggers seems too tempting to pass up.



Here is another spicy one. I love this card from time spiral standard, but its traditionally uncubable due to the draw back. However, since I am running protection and temp. hexproof effects, is there enough defacto counterspells to make dralnu a card? Should I be thinking of a sweet mystical teachings based control deck?




Fun combo? I think I have enough disruption elements where this is either fair, or the deck goes off late in the game.




Also taking a slightly different approach with some of the graveyard/sacrifice incentative cards. I don't feel like I can really power a burning vengeance based control deck, but these sorts of decks that build their end game by using spot removal (or mass removal) to control the board, seems like an interesting alternative.




Also taking advantage of some of the low power graveyard-land interactions. This seems like a nice touch for an attrition based midrange deck.




Not sure about these guys. Originally, I wanted to add them as part of a recursive aggro package that could be disrupted by cards that mess with graveyard order, but they are at a more midrange price tag.




Thought it would be fun to have an over-the-top tribal midrange deck in UB to challenge the UW based splicers.

Any of this seem crazy?
 
Kirblinx

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
As with all your cubes, I enjoy drafting them heavily (Also first post on your forum, hi!) so I gave your second draft a couple of drafts (that doesn't really sound right). Seems fun from what I can see so far. There are a lot of little interactions between all the themes you have going, but in saying that, that may be part of the problem. There are more themes going on so each draft deck feels like it will have 3+ themes in it. Take this last draft I did as an example:

GW(ub) Midnight Gond from CubeTutor.com












I have the combo (which I'll call the enchantment theme), the eggs and self-mill in one deck. If anything it makes me feel like a MM2015 draft, where there are a fair amount of archetype specific cards and your deck is a muddle of them all. Don't get me wrong, I like that style of draft/play. When you have this incidental synergy that works to your favour, it is awesome.

I guess it feels like just a further step towards a normal draft format than a cube environment that I am used to with strong archetypical pillars (which is more that can be said for power-max cubes I suppose).

Also, when drafting it seems I keep wanting to pick 3 or 4 drops. I don't know if that is because there is more of them than in other cubes (especially 4 drops in RB) or the power ceiling with them is higher so I feel inclined to pick them. Time will tell I suppose.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Grillo how'd you feel about considering the temples now that they're getting closer to the pre-rotation summer price dip? I wanna draft scrylands and karoos!
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
hmmm...I see what you mean. It does feel much less focused than the lists the other cubes were putting out. The Penny Pincher really felt (to me at least) what a good healthy pauper meta game would like. It might actually be (can't believe I'm saying this) a good idea to trim the themes down. Interesting to think of that as being a problem.

Yeah, I'm excited to try the scry lands. I suppose I could just add them to the cube tutor list already.
 
safra

safra

I've been playing my comp. higher-powered cube with scrylands main (and now ULD, but as the first guild cycle) basically since they came out, they're almost perfect cube lands. the amount of selection they give players (as well as the brief time it takes to scry 1 vis a vis fetching and shuffling) is just right imo and I think as more people play with them they'll grow on you guys too. a++ would heavily recommend!
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

God damnit I drafted a supersweet UR/x Grixis Spells'n'Delve list and the servers goofed up and I lost it! I'm totally gonna see if I can't sneak in some more support for "UR spells with B delve" in my own list.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Opinion time, how do we feel about these cards?




I'm starting to question what the cut off point is for them as regards cube. Mulch and Kruphix's insight can effectively act as draw spells, while wayfinder provides a body. Commune, salvage, and scout all have much lower upsides, and force you to run the risk of bining a key card you were looking for.

I think I should probably cut dralnu. Despite him looking sweet in that deck, he is still way too vulnerable to not lead to feel bads.

I added the scry lands into the pincher list in anticipation of the price drop.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
ok, back to business. Modin got me thinking about adding some more artifact destruction and enchantment destruction to the cube. Its true that a lot of the artifacts you can either hit with standard removal or are there to be sacrificed, but not having a good way to interact with the equipment pieces in particular can be rough.

I think we've crossed the milestone where artifact and enchantment removal dosen't actually have to be attached to a stick to be playable.

I was thinking:




Justice is kind of neat in the sense that it provides incentive to go into G/R, but dosen't require it. Its also mass removal and a mana sink. The dispeller's capsule counts as another artifact. Not sure about the zealot, I kind of want a 3cc or smaller creature that can be unearthed in a G/B deck. Sylvok replica is another choice, but I like zealot's stats better, just not its {G}{G} cost. Not sure what the cuts would be, though i'm hesistent to touch any removal, as I feel the cube can't afford to cut its as-fan at all.

Modin suggested tarfire and/or nameless inversion (due to the synergy with wort, boggart auntie). Tarfire I think is fine, and probably nameless inversion as well.

Another change I've been thinking of is cutting goblin cohort and mogg conscripts in favor of two reckless waifs. They could really do a lot of damage in a bounceland focused world. Another possible switch is salvage titan for skeletal vampire.

I'm also switching back to some of the older power plays, because I miss them. Here are the changes

Out



In



Toying around a little bit with the multi-color section, just trying out some old RGD favorites. Adding back in the second master splicer and cloud of faeries, because I miss them. The splicer deck really is spectacular to see in action, and its the play of running master splicer into a board with an existing rusted relic that makes it so fun. The double cloud of faeries allows a lot of sweet non-green ramp decks, and exciting burst mana turns, so everyone else just up their game when the familiar monster comes out of hibernation.

Also, decks:

Esper Control Ramp











This started out as an attempt to go into esper familiar combo, but when ghostly flicker never showed, it still turned into an awesome ramp control deck. I love being able to run 15 lands in these decks, maximizing the number of answer cards you can run, running the curve up on powerful 4 and 5cc spells, and still be fine. The deck would have these mana spike turns where it would make 8-11 mana and just go crazy.

Bone Shredder is now a wanted man in multiple countries for crimes against humanity. Between all of the bounce, value reanimation, and archaeomancer to get back the bounce and value reanimation, he ran up quite the headcount. 5 kills a game, not unheard of. The echo on him was great, as it both put him into the yard for reanimation, and triggred morbid for tragic slip. The artifact restriction on him was also a neat limitation in the context of the cube, and lead to some interesting plays.

There were just so many value removal plays: archaeomancer on unburial rites, consuming vapors, ribbons of night, and sever the bloodline--just so good.

Cards like swarm of bloodflies are just great control or midrange finishers, leveraging removal into tempo and eventually just taking over the game.

Some of the less common color combinations are also really coming into their own:

GR/w Pants












Gruul identity! I was very happy to see this list doing well. Again, the power of bouncelands, with another 15 land deck comfortably running a 7 drop. This was a really sweet deck, and showcases how good the artifact theme can be in other color combinations. This deck can either use creature buffs to control the board, as reach, to provide a source of evasion, or power a burst damage based plan. This was an artifact based plan, but different from the boros lists we usually see, which are usually focused on going wide. This deck was about dealing damage in huge chunks with individual threats.

Fangren Marauder continues to be the funniest card in the cube due to the global nature of its triggered ability: gaining anywhere between 15-30 additional life in a game off of it isn't unheard of.

Piston sledge has been a really amazing card, and continued to be such in this list, due to the free equip. Igniter provided another way for the deck to produce another one-hit knock-out punch, and was capable of striking for 10-15 damage on a go (before double strike).

Spikeshot elder though was the mvp. The card was insane in a heavy red deck like this. What makes it so dangerous was that you can activate it on the attack step. He had turns that went like this: equip piston sledge (free equip), attack for 4, ghor-clan rampager, and than activate it for an additional 8-16 points of damage!
 
Modin

Modin

Seeing how good Artisan of Kozilek was in the slugfest that is mm2 sealed, what do you think of him in the context of this cube's big mana strategies? I think it would be a strong card for the real ramp decks(that go up to 7+ mana). Did you consider it? I think tying the big ramp targets to specific colors has it's merits so I'm kinda back and forth on the Artisan.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah, I think both artisan of kozilek and ulamog's crusher are playable. Decks certaintly have the ability to ramp them out. I originally hadn't given them much thought because I think of them more as tron cards, but they could be interesting as cards that add a sort of tronesque feel.

The only issue with them is that they are colorless, which means they could end up being a lazy draft pick.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Doesn't the steep mana costs dictate enough of a requisite on the deck your drafting to mitigate the drawback of it being slotted in a lot of different decks? Like it's not a colorless 3 mana 3/3 that just goes in all decks.

edit:

Got a draft down, but the servers crashed!









 
Modin

Modin

Some considerations in regards to the on deck discussions on cubetutor:


This dude doesn't seem to have a home in the cube as GW is generally trying to go big rather than wide and it hasn't got many favorable interaction in the more enchantment based decks(Correct me if I'm wrong). Master's Call is a card that I could see working with this but I don't have the feeling that the GW pool in general supports a more token focused deck.


I love the new tech against the Splicer decks. Javelineers also interact well with the bounce/replay interactions.


How was your experience with that card? I like the idea behind it but it seems to be very hard to get to a proper power and not have it be a win more. That said I think GR hos more of a token theme(including sacrifice) than GW does so that speaks for it. Also it makes me want to build around it. See this deck:

Jund BigSacrifice from CubeTutor.com










 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top