The Pocket Graveyard Combo Cube

[inscho]

The Pocket Graveyard Combo Cube (WIP):
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pocketgcc

A micro version of the Graveyard Combo Cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/inscho

198 cards designed for:
4 Player draft: 5 packs of 9 cards
2 Player grid draft 18 packs of 9 cards in 3 x 3 grids
2 Player sealed: 10 packs of 9 cards

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Sharing this work in progress. Would appreciate any test drafts and comments. My primary objective is to distill the goals of the GCC into a smaller more manageable paper cube (in both size and monetary value) while maintaining a degree of replayability through archetype density and diversity.

Even at this cube size, each guild should have 3 different axes of play available with archetypes that bleed into one another.

The land suite is limited (13%), but flexible:
10 fetches
10 triomes
Prismatic Vista, City of Brass, Mana Confluence, Ash Barrens

and with 15% of the spells being colorless, 3rd and 4th color splashes should be very achievable.

It wouldn't be a GCC without an abundance of novel synergies, and taxing and staxing effects...which are in even higher concentration at the 195 size. This version does not have any infinite combos.

Thanks for looking!

 

[inscho]

Potential Adds:


Is it too good here? I prefer it to Cranial Plating as it comes with a body, and it plays well with things like:





No need to explain this one. Can I include it without it always being taken over everything else? I'm looking for another land worth digging for and recurring. Probably too good.



Plays well with blink, counters, recursion. 1 damage pings down a surprising amount of stuff. Is there space for both this and Walking Ballista? Probably not, and Ballista is more valuable as a Trinketable, Trawlerable mana sink. If Monoskelion's ability cost 0 to activate, I might give it a harder look.



There's some light +1/+1 counters synergy in the cube, and quite a few 2cmc 3/x creatures. I was hesitant to add another one-off mechanic, but it is pretty easy to grasp.



I was really interested in Vraan, Executioner Thane, but not triggering on it's own death made it hard to justify over other 2cmc options in black. Idol is in a similar vein as Braids, Arisen Nightmare, and I like the idea of an aggro-oriented sacrifice deck. This also combos with things like Bloodghast and Hidden Stockpile. 2 mana sac outlets are >>>> than 3



I love Port, and if I can find a slot for it I would love to be able to toss another piece of colorless disruption.



Another piece of colorless disruption I'd like to add.



Another piece for the aggresive sacrifice deck. This would bridge equipment and +1/+1 counters with the sacrifice archetype. It's a bit below rate by itself, but can do a lot of wacky stuff.



Boy do I want to strap this to a Nested Shambler or start mowing down creatures with Ulvenwald Tracker.



This would likely come in if the Spells Matters cards are cut. Marshal can spam the board quickly in tandem with things like Extraction Specialist, Undying Malice, Unearth, and Reanimate.

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Potential Cuts:



At a glance, Krushok feels like it exists in a different world than Strip Mine. However, I really like the decision trees it creates.

Early pump from a reinforce is good in aggro in general, but especially for things like:


And being a discard-based mechanic gives it some extra play with things like:


I think it stays, but it's on my watch list.



Free repeated sacrifice outlets are good, but this one might not cut it in this environment. There's no grand payoff like Living Death, Hallowed Spiritkeeper, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, etc. It's mostly just graveyard fueling value. This was Spawning Pit in a previous iteration, which I might prefer or maybe this slot becomes Jinxed Idol.



I think this one stays for now, but it's in danger of being a little cute. I wanted another cheap recursive effect, and preferably something that could factor into combat in a similar way that Makeshift Mannequin has in old versions of the GCC. However, 4cmc is too expensive for this environment.



While this is a great environment for Baba, Fiend Artisan or Grim Flayer are a bit more versatile.



Supporting spells matters may be one subtheme too many, but it's really the only card that cares about instant or sorceries outside of Snapcaster Mage. So maybe it makes a token or two instead of 4+. That seems fine at this power level, and I'm also a dork that loves me some Raven's Crime and Flame Jab shenanigans.



An achievement unlocker, but I'm not sure if this is versatile enough for 195, and red might be better served with some way to kill larger creatures Magmatic Sinkhole, Lightning Axe, Mine Collapse, or Obliterating Bolt

 

[Chriskool]

I am interested in seeing how any grid playtesting goes! It will be interesting to see how the different formats (grid v sealed v small pack booster draft) play.

 

[Nanonox]

Random thoughts/impressions and cards that look cool for your cube:

I like Firestorm as a controlling Red wrath and crazy enabler, dislike Urza's Saga here as being just too powerful. Agreed on the Altar not being the best sac outlet for this cube. Grim Flayer is probably better than Baba here, but I also drafted a fun Baba deck that was pretty open-ended. I like how it ties creatures, artifacts and lands together in a single card.

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With such a low curve and so many cards caring about cheap cards, is the cheat package worth it? I am talking about:

Late to Diner
Daretti, Scrap Savant
Angel of the Ruins
Cityscape Leveler
Duplicant

I think you are going for supporting a slower, more controlling deck with these. They just kind of stick out to me. Maybe some alternatives would fit into more decks and still give slow decks tools to exist.

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Cards that would fit with your disruptive goals that would play well I think

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Cards are good, but seem not as synergistic as the rest.

Dire Fleet Daredevil: I'd love to see something like Magmatic Channeler or Dragon's Rage Channeler here as cheap GY enablers that also turn into threats.

Radha, Heart of Keld: Good rate, nice mana sink and card advantage. Not much synergy to be had though since your lands decks are more focused on discard/recurring lands rather than landfall. An alternative I like:



Same decent rate, but with bonus artifact synergies and goes well with your cheap curve.

Hope these scattered thoughts help!

 

[inscho]

Always appreciate the feedback. You bring up a handful of things I debated over when finalizing the list.

With such a low curve and so many cards caring about cheap cards, is the cheat package worth it? I am talking about:

Late to Diner
Daretti, Scrap Savant
Angel of the Ruins
Cityscape Leveler
Duplicant

I think you are going for supporting a slower, more controlling deck with these. They just kind of stick out to me.

Yeah, I'm definitely trying to have a few slower/bigger archetypes available in addition to the tempo oriented stuff.

Flexible Fat:


Fat:


Cheat:


Ramp:


By using fatties that self-discard and support spells that are relevant in all stages of the game, the cheat decks aren't fully committed to being cheat decks and rather slightly favor going big.

I really enjoy Angel of the Ruins, because it might fetch a Savaii Triome in a Rakdos Deck with Reanimate and Goblin Welder. Or in a Selesnya deck it might pitch early to fuel Exploration only to be bought back later via Grapple with the Past or Shigeki, Jukai Visionary and hardcast. Exiling 2 artifacts on ETB is also pretty huge in this environment.

Whether the environment creates enough incentive to go large over more aggressive/tempo strategies is the main question. I'd like there to be space for both ideally. It seems important for format diversity, depth, and replayability (my primary concern at 195 imo).

All three of these were in earlier drafts. I like them all for this format. They are good options if I move away from the go large strategies.

One card guild sections make it tough to justify Tidehollow....Frogkin Kidnapper was my answer, and while it might not be an artifact, it at least comes with Blink synergy.

I opted for Strip Mine over Wasteland as there aren't that many nonbasics to target in this environment with a majority of the fixing being fetches. So on one hand, Wasteland can't get too out of control, but on the other hard it's a bit narrow and having both strip and waste in 195 feels like a lot of hard colorless LD. If I cut the go-large strategies, having both would feel much more reasonable. I should think more about Wasteland though. I tried to limit the amount of repeatable land recursion by avoiding Wrenn and Six and Ramunap Excavator. There's still Life from the Loam and Crucible of the Worlds which were minimally necessary for archetype support...as well as some one-shot recursion effects.

Dire Fleet Daredevil: I'd love to see something like Magmatic Channeler or Dragon's Rage Channeler here as cheap GY enablers that also turn into threats.

The Channelers are both good. They'd be snap includes in a more spell volume environment. This environment is a bit more discard and sacrifice oriented so I like them a little less. Magmatic may be better the Dire Fleet here, but I tried to limit the number of 3 toughness 2 drops to favor more interactivity and creature trading. There are only 3 right now: Ledger Shredder, Shigeki, Jukai Visionary and Tarmogoyf and they are in the colors with the worst removal options.

Dire Fleet is pretty versatile. It is graveyard hate for a format with a lot of flashback and retrace spells. It has a first striking body which wears equipment well and defends well in an environment with a lot of low toughness critters, it is a blink target, and also a late game mana sink.

Radha, Heart of Keld: Good rate, nice mana sink and card advantage. Not much synergy to be had though since your lands decks are more focused on discard/recurring lands rather than landfall. An alternative I like:

Same decent rate, but with bonus artifact synergies and goes well with your cheap curve.

Hope these scattered thoughts help!

I actually hadn't seen Elmar before. Cool card. I need to think about how it could fit into my gruul decks.

Yeah, Radha is debatable...it was going to be Territorial Kavu originally. My thinking was it allowed the go big decks to rarely miss a land drop, it frees you up to discard lands to retrace and looting, it has a reasonably aggressive body, is a mana sink, and is fun with Exploration.

Thanks again for the input!

 

[Schafkurai]

Hey there,
I've been reading around the discord and forum for a while now and never got around to posting anything but this is the straw that breaks the camels back!

I started to build my own graveyard focused cube half a year ago and since I usually play with 2-4 people I decided for a ~200 card cube. Your GCC and Zubat's graveyard cube on Cubecobra were the largest contributors to my design, so I'm really happy to hear more of your musings! Funnily enough my playgroup recently asked if I could increase the cube size to 360 to have more archetype diversity .


The observations that I can share so far (I've only done two 2-player and three 4-player drafts):

Drafting 5 packs with 9 cards for 4 players works very well, almost too well. The drafters usually end up with 35-40 playables (+lands) and trimming that down also takes time. I would assume it's similar with your cube.

My friends prefer Housmann draft with 2 players. It emulates normal cube draft power levels quite well while not being too competitive in the draft portion. I can't compare it to grid draft though, since I have not tried that.

We did not have so many drafts yet but at ~200 cards archetype diversity is not what I know from larger cubes. With only ~25-30 cards per color I find it difficult to accomodate enough cards to support different theaters. My white section is mostly aggressive and single cards like Wrath of God or Approach of the Second Sun are probably not enough and not supported enough by the rest of the cards in that color. Similarly my blue section is very controlling and cards like Skaab Ruinator or more tempo-ey might not fit in well.

But maybe I'm overthinking this aspect of cube building and it's perfectly possible to build a well rounded, diverse and interesting cube out of ~200 cards! (Besides, it might be my own incompetence that keeps me from meshing the theaters and archetypes together in a better way).

As for more specific advice:

I really enjoy Angel of the Ruins, because it might fetch a Savaii Triome in a Rakdos Deck with Reanimate and Goblin Welder. Or in a Selesnya deck it might pitch early to fuel Exploration only to be bought back later via Grapple with the Past or Shigeki, Jukai Visionary and hardcast. Exiling 2 artifacts on ETB is also pretty huge in this environment.

I really like this approach! I often have the impression that you have to sacrifice power for flexibility in a smaller cube but Angel of the Ruins has enough to offer, I think.

Cheat:

My feeling is, that players will just throw the stronger cheat options (e.g.Shelldock Isle and Reanimate) into any deck and the weaker options don't offer enough density/redundancy to really build a deck around. Maybe you're fine with that and it could be that it makes the draft feel fresh and interesting each time.

Obviously I'm sad to not see much delve and madness around but I guess you have that in your GCC.



What about these ones? I always felt that the from Ruthless Sniper killed the appeal but I only played it in limited, never in cube. Vengevine I find a hard card to make work in my cube but maybe it's ok if it only works sometimes and otherwise it's still a hasty 4-drop. The other two I similarly lack experience with but Rootwire Amalgam reads like it has a high ceiling but too many restrictions.

As for additions, Steel Seraph might be a nice bridge between white-based aggro/midrange and a nice cheat target. Similarly Phyrexian Fleshgorger but maybe you left them out on purpose.

The Restoration of Eiganjo is a pet card of mine for white graveyard strategies and I wonder, have you ever tried Wharf Infiltrator? It seems like a better Looter il-Kor at times but maybe it just never gets through. Gixian Puppeteer and Phyrexian Dragon Engine might also be interesting if you consider the lower to the ground-reanimator cards!

Well, I'm looking forward to see what you come up with and whether you're yay or nay on small cubes, in the end.

P.S.: I'm very much looking forward to your V5 Primer to come for your GCC.

 

[inscho]

A couple sample decks for each guild:

Spoiler: Azorius

Discard Control

Tempo

Spoiler: Dimir

Dredge

Discard Control

Spoiler: Rakdos

Sacrifice

Reanimator

Spoiler: Gruul

Aggro Loam

Rampinator

Spoiler: Selesnya

Hatebears

Ramp

Spoiler: Orzhov

Stax

Reanimator

Spoiler: Golgari

Stax

Stompy

Spoiler: Simic

Ramp

Dredge

Spoiler: Izzet

Reanimator

Tokens

Spoiler: Boros

Nannox’s Discard Control

Artifact Aggro

Welcome, Schafkurai! Always excited to bait a lurker into posting

I appreciate the feedback on draft format. I'll definitely take Housmann draft into consideration if there's just 2 of us.

With only ~25-30 cards per color I find it difficult to accomodate enough cards to support different theaters. My white section is mostly aggressive and single cards like Wrath of God or Approach of the Second Sun are probably not enough and not supported enough by the rest of the cards in that color. Similarly my blue section is very controlling and cards like Skaab Ruinator or more tempo-ey might not fit in well.

But maybe I'm overthinking this aspect of cube building and it's perfectly possible to build a well rounded, diverse and interesting cube out of ~200 cards! (Besides, it might be my own incompetence that keeps me from meshing the theaters and archetypes together in a better way).

It is challenging to create a well-rounded diverse environment at this cube size, but I like a good puzzle to solve. I think you just have to be very focused on flexibility above all (in card selection and archetype support), and tailor the power level to allow for the most flexibility. Something like Ruinator and Approach are a little too specialized at this size imo. I did a ton of sample drafts (above) to see what some of the various archetypes might look like. I didn't really branch out into 3-color decks beyond 1 or 2 card splashes, and 3-color decks should be possible with Triomes + Fetches. I'm pretty pleased with this 20 deck sampling. I also don't expect that I'll be playing with this so often that it will get boring. Part of the reason for exploring this format was due to moving to a different city, and no longer having access to a regular playgroup. This is designed to fit in my carry-on bag when I visit friends.

My feeling is, that players will just throw the stronger cheat options (e.g.Shelldock Isle and Reanimate) into any deck and the weaker options don't offer enough density/redundancy to really build a deck around. Maybe you're fine with that and it could be that it makes the draft feel fresh and interesting each time.

I see the decks at this size manifesting on a spectrum rather than clearly demarcated archetypes. Take Gruul's Archetypes: At the two poles there's a fast discard-centered "madness" archetype, and a slower ramp/reanimator archetype. Situated in between the two is a more disruptive midrange aggro loam deck which is structurally a bridge between the first two archetypes. The iterations within that general architecture range in speed, color distribution, and the density of artifacts. I've tried to design each guild on a spectrum, and I hope to make a primer for this cube at some point, but I've also been trying to write a new primer for the main cube for well over a year now lol. I'm fairly happy with this first draft, but I'm starting to see some areas that need attention after doing all of these sample drafts.

All that's to say that if someone is angling for a Reanimator deck and their neighbor takes the one hard reanimation spell in black (Reanimate) for their Dredge deck, the person trying to draft reanimator should have an adjacent strategy to pivot towards.

What about these ones? I always felt that the from Ruthless Sniper killed the appeal but I only played it in limited, never in cube. Vengevine I find a hard card to make work in my cube but maybe it's ok if it only works sometimes and otherwise it's still a hasty 4-drop. The other two I similarly lack experience with but Rootwire Amalgam reads like it has a high ceiling but too many restrictions.

I had Archfiend of Ifnir in originally, but Ruthless Sniper proved to be more versatile as a discard buildaround. I took the power level down several notches to accomodate cards like Sniper. Toughness of creatures are generally lower making -1/-1 more relevant. I wanted something come down early and profit off of the various cycling and discard triggers that are available in the first few turns of the game. In an aggressive deck Sniper is functionally a 2/3 in combat with mana open, it can ping down tokens, carry equipment, etc. It's a great example of a card that wouldn't really be viable in my main cube, but is very relevant here.

Vengevine has good base stats for the cube without being able to recur it, but there are a few of cards that have been included (in part) to ease Vengevine recursion:


There's also a fairly low mana curve and a lot of hand sculpting cards, so it shouldn't be terribly difficult to recur Vengvine at least once in a game, and that's plenty enough value for this power level imo.

Rootwire Amalgam is a card that I'm surprisingly thrilled about. It bridges aggro, blink, sacrifice, artifacts, and ramp all in one card. The key to it's relevance is that a 2/3 for 2 mana is an acceptable base line in this environment.

Signal Pest was my solution for a token payoff that didn't take up much real estate. It has pseudo evasion, and is an artifact. It has always played better than it reads.

I felt Fleshgorger was too good here, but I might be wrong with the presence of so much artifact hate. I didn't think the Seraph was as inspiring, and I'm trying to limit the number of cards that occupy the 3cmc slot. It really clogs up sequencing. That's why I lean towards the cards that either cost 1 or 2 mana or have some sort of alternate casting at 1 or 2 mana (rootwire amalgam, waker of waves, blast from the past, etc)

The Restoration of Eiganjo is a pet card of mine for white graveyard strategies and I wonder, have you ever tried Wharf Infiltrator? It seems like a better Looter il-Kor at times but maybe it just never gets through. Gixian Puppeteer and Phyrexian Dragon Engine might also be interesting if you consider the lower to the ground-reanimator cards!

Restoration is such a house, and I've been close to including it several times. It likely has way more value here than Mikaeus, the Lunarch. I think that I left it out, because it felt a little too good, but I could be wrong.

Definitely debated about Infiltrator over the Looter as well as Ghostly Pilferer which is less good, but introduces some other things that I like. I need to think about it some more, but I'm definitely intrigued by the versatility of Infiltrator.

Gixian Puppeteer is another great suggestion that I waffled over. I really like how it bridges sacrifice and the slower cycling/discard deck. 4 cmc is the only sticking point, but the fact that it comes down as a blocking body that likely replaces itself makes it very intriguing.

I debated between Anje's Ravager and the Dragon Engine, and continue to go back and forth over it. I don't feel like there's room for both, and I haven't made a decision either way yet. Another good card to bring up.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments!

 

[Modin]

I debated between Anje's Ravager and the Dragon Engine, and continue to go back and forth over it. I don't feel like there's room for both, and I haven't made a decision either way yet. Another good card to bring up.

FWIW I really love Ravager. It's can be really good but also mess you up and provides the opponent with coubterplay opportunities like bouncing a creature in response to the trigger. At the same time you might not want to cast it too early because of the cards in your hand. It just provides a really fun tension while being powerful when played and built right.

 

[inscho]

FWIW I really love Ravager. It's can be really good but also mess you up and provides the opponent with coubterplay opportunities like bouncing a creature in response to the trigger. At the same time you might not want to cast it too early because of the cards in your hand. It just provides a really fun tension while being powerful when played and built right.

Agreed. It's super cool in the right environment. It has a unique play pattern, and while you have to jump through some hoops the payoff usually feels worth it.

That said, I'm also thinking about Phoenix of Ash in place of Ravager, due to sheer versatility. Ravager is a bit narrow.

 

[inscho]

After all those test drafts and suggestions, I decided to switch some things around

Out:


In:


Cut some awkward fits. Cautiously adding in Wasteland and Balance. Leveler was a bit too vulnerable as a cheat piece so it's upgraded to Battlesphere. Testing The Meathook Massacre which might be a little too good here. Wargear felt like a power outlier.

I also realized that I needed to incease the cube to 198 to be evenly broken up into 9 card packs.

 

[Schafkurai]

I love all those sweet CC draft decks! They seem less nuanced than the draft pictures I have seen from your larger cube but I cannot imagine that a lack of diversity is a problem here. All theaters and a multitude of strategies seem to be present across the guilds.

One thing I noticed was a potential bias towards certain cards: Currency Converter, Containment Construct appearing in almost half of the decks? And who could blame you, those are awesome ! Something I was wondering and that has probably been covered somewhere else in the depths of this forum. What about breaking singleton for certain cool graveyard buildarounds that lack redundant (good) options?

That's why I lean towards the cards that either cost 1 or 2 mana or have some sort of alternate casting at 1 or 2 mana (rootwire amalgam, waker of waves, blast from the past, etc)

This definitely makes sense! From a limited play perspective the angel is a house but in addition to being a three cmc it's also .

The last update is, on average, increasing the power again, I think I see where this is going .

I will definitely use these draft logs to take a harder look at my archetypes, to see how I can improve. Thank you for your service!

 

[inscho]

One thing I noticed was a potential bias towards certain cards: Currency Converter, Containment Construct appearing in almost half of the decks? And who could blame you, those are awesome ! Something I was wondering and that has probably been covered somewhere else in the depths of this forum. What about breaking singleton for certain cool graveyard buildarounds that lack redundant (good) options?

The backbone of the GCC is discard and artifacts...so you definitely get a lot of mileage out of artifacts that are discard payoffs here! Both converter and construct are top picks and slot into most decks. However, I think doubling up on either at this cube size would warp the environment too much (in an undesirable way).

Running multiples is a valid approach to solving one's format goals, but I've never been especially interested in breaking singleton in my own cubes. I've considered multiples of fetches at times to increase fixing density while limiting the prevalence of 3+ colors decks, but have never given it a proper test. Singleton is something that defines cube for me, and that novelty never really wears off. I'm pretty content to make the most of the one-off limitation and waiting on WOTC's release schedule to plug design holes. Multiples and customs have never been my thing, but I've enjoyed cubes that have featured both.

The last update is, on average, increasing the power again, I think I see where this is going .

Yeah....if you follow my main thread then you know my process of cube design is essentially a cycle of dropping a list's power level down until guild parity is (mostly) established, and then slowly notching up the power right up to the point where the wheels are about to fall off. Oftentimes the wheels fall off, and then I have to drop the power back down and start over again.