Thinking of deep cuts to 540 list

B

blacksmithy

As far as counterspells go, I like:
Counterspell—It does exactly what you want a counter to do, but the restrictive mana makes it less "simply the best" than it is in Constructed, so there's some small amount of interesting tension there
Mana Leak—Better than Counterspell early, worse late, easier to cast. Someone on here wrote a novella about the positive effects Mana Leak has on Game 2 after you Mana Leak in Game 1 so that's cool
Remand—Draws a card, buys you time in control, stumbles your opponent in tempo, and you can use it on your own spell once in your lifetime for an AMAZING BLOWOUT. Also funny against flashback spells if you have any of those worth countering
Memory Lapse—Sort of the negative flip side of Remand, gives you more tempo gain but probably slightly less card advantage than Remand, depending on whether your deck or your opponent's deck has better draws (it gets better the better your opponent's draws are)
Miscalculation—Seriously why has this not been reprinted in a duel deck, I want to run it in my Modern-frame Cube. Cycling is just the bomb and most decks don't care that it's 1 worse than Mana Leak
Dismiss—It's like the half of Cryptic Command I'm not too much of a scrub to know when to use, but less than 1% of the $$$ (unless you proxy). Wheels to the control player, just like I want it to, and isn't as tough on the ol' mana as Cryptic
I probably forgot a few of my faves but that's my thoughts on counters.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Grillo_Parlante said:
What is everyone's experiences with actual counterspell in cube? I tend to find people shy away because of the {U}{U}, but I'm not sure if thats fair to the card.

Remand and mana leak I've always found to be solid.
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Counterspell has been fine for me, but that's because I go out of my way to give control some buffs. If the typical U/W or U/B control decks can exist in your cube, I don't see why counterspell wouldn't be viable. Usually the walkers are the draw to blue in the first place, and once someone gets a hand on one of them, they're more likely to go U/x which allows counterspell to be just fine. I cut Mana Leak because I had too many counterspells and because Miscalculation is just so much better and live all the time. And it's totes cool to make some miscalculation joke and wreck em.

For counters in general, I'd go for variety before doubling up on anything. I like having a mix of different kinds of spells because you can't always assume that the control player will be playing U/x heavily leaning on blue. Sometimes you'll get Grixis or Jeskai builds with lighter blue splashes and they'd LOVE to have counterspells that were easier to cast with their mana bases. Three of my favorites are Miscalculation, Syncopate, and Dissolve. Dissolve is for the heavier U/x decks, the pure control ones, who would love to scry and set up future plays. Syncopate is an easy splash and I see it more for tempo-y decks as a gotcha type spell, and the exile effect is sometimes relevant. Miscalculation is the best because it's easily splashable, relevant most of the game, and you can just cycle it for value later if they've already jumped too far ahead with their mana production.

Another vote for Lorwyn Garruk, he's perfectly designed imo. Great walker that doesn't warp the game around him, but is definitely something you should take care of early before he spew out too much value and helps land the killing blow.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Hathaway said:
Thanks. A few questions.

You say that Silverheart is one of the only ramp targets. I want green ramp to be good, but so far, no one has done anything impressive with it. What else would you suggest?
Overrun was kind of my attempt at a green finisher. Would something like Garruk Wildspeaker be a better fit?
I like your idea of more counters. I'm considering going to two Counterspell and Remand and Mana Leak as well as adding Prohibit. Too much?
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I am a huuuge fan of Garruk Wildspeaker! I totally recommend him - I was under the impression from your other post asking about Pod that you disliked Planeswalkers, so I didn't make the suggestion myself. Totally run him if you can!

Personally, I really love Counterspell, as it really gives incentives to making blue part of your deck, rather than just splashing for counterspells. I'm also a huge fan of double Remand because it feels pretty fair and somewhat rewarding to both players; "I countered your spell, but you can still try to cast it again later, leaving me up on tempo, and it didn't cost me a card!" Loves it. Like shamizy, I'm a big fan of enabling control strategies, so I don't think it sounds like too much; I think the whole package sounds great. Generally, I like to have blue be a bit more disruptive than the other colours, so I think it's fine if your counters+bounce in blue wind up being a shade more numerous than your removal count in other colours. I also like Ojutai's Command and Absorb a lot; I'd really recommend you consider dropping Wall of Denial for one of those two gems. Wall of Denial is a very miserable card to play against, as it's virtually impossible to deal with, especially in a lower-power environment.


For Green ramp to be good is a tough question, and it's a question troubled further by your current power level, which sits a bit below mine. What seem good in my cube might be a bit too much for yours. That warning in your mind, these are what I've liked:
- Woodland Bellower makes for a great target to give some reward to a good green curve without giving too much power to green. I really like the idea of this dropping an Eternal Witness, essentially making it a 3-for-1, which sounds fantastic to me.
- Wolfbriar Elemental gets better the more you can kick it, which makes it a great ramp target with tokens that feel a lot more relevant than the kind that Deranged Hermit spews onto the board. The tokens are 2/2, which aren't unbeatable, but are also quite a beating, making Wolfbriar feel like one of the fairest ramp targets available, in my opinion.
- Consider dropping Acidic Slime for Conclave Naturalists, or run both, as the Naturalists have a bit more meat on their bones, and Acidic Slime, while a great card and a sure staple for most cubes, is really more of a defensive play unless you put it in pants. For Green Ramp to be encouraged, you really ought to have some things that can stand their own ground, which made Naturalists an easy include over here, as a 4/4 is nothing to scoff at.
- I love Vorapede because it's a real mean card that demands a green-based deck to play on-curve, but it might be a bit too mean for your environment. Removal is perhaps a bit more plentiful over here, and the power level is up a bit, too, and Vorapede can still bring tears to your opponent's eyes if you ramp it out. That said, if you want to support green ramp, this is a great, albeit heavy-handed, way to do it.
- Thragtusk is also a nice green card, giving the midrange player the means to stabilize, though it becomes a bit oppressive if your environment has lots and lots of blink. I think it's fine, but I know a lot of people are traumatized from when it was standard legal.
- Titania, Protector of Argoth is a fun ramp target that also improves Harrow, Edge of Autumn, Sylvan Safekeeper, Knight of the Reliquary, and fetch lands in general as a family package, but I don't know how she'd fare given the very generous red burn suite you've got available (speaking as far as quality is concerned, not quantity. Quantity-wise, you've got a good number, in my opinion).
- Surrak, the Hunt Caller isn't quite a Big Green Ramp target (sitting at 4cmc and all), but he's a great supporting member of the cast. I really like him, so I try to recommend him whenever I get the chance; haste is delicious.

To support any changes to your green lineup, I'd probably suggest bumping Blastoderm (uninteractive and kills itself, making it a bit awkward to use right), Vinelasher Kudzu (I wish this card was better, but sadly...), Ambush Viper (I find this card a bit boring; why not just splash another colour for removal? but that's just my taste), and Masked Admirers (I love the Admirers but they never seem to do enough in Cube). I would also strongly recommend you reclassify Wild Nacatl and Flinthoof Boar as multicoloured, as it feels sort of unfair to take up Green slots with what are definitively multicolour cards.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
He has a bit of a lower power format atm, cards like thragtusk and vorapede might end up being too high power for him. I also really hate dislike thragtusk for the deck it helps enable: good stuff midrange for miles.

If he's going for lower power, blastoderm is actually quite good, and makes ninja of the deep hours better. There also is synergy with proliferate and graveyard strategies that care about body count (delve). Ambush viper is also amazing in those types of decks, because it both acts as removal and increases creature count in the yard. One of the best lower power ramp/reanimation targets is pelakka wurm. High enough CC where it enables true ramp, requires a commitment to green, stabilizes, and feels so good to cast. Because it has ETB and death triggers, its a solid reanimation target, even if it gets killed right away.

How about wickerbough elder? If you are running pod, its an easier target to pod up to.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Yeah, Wickerbough is awesome. A reasonably costed guy who turns into a decent 4/4 body after getting rid of a troublesome permanent. That's exactly the kind of removal I love.
 
Hathaway

Hathaway

I just want to say that I have awesome friends. Two of my friends went to a store 40 miles away last night, took a binder of bulk rares that a different friend had given me, and brought me back all this:

Utter End
Dictate of Heliod
Chained to the Rocks
Valorous Stance
Delver of Secrets
Delver of Secrets
Green Sun's Zenith
Nevinyrral's Disk
Tangle Wire
Bloodsoaked Champion
Gravecrawler
Mystic Snake
Phyrexian Revoker
Geralf's Messenger
Sulfuric Vortex
Prophetic Flamespeaker
Red Sun's Zenith
Volt Charge

Oh yeah, and these:

Birthing Pod
Birthing Pod
Birthing Pod

My friends are awesome. I wish that I could update the cube and the list on Cube Tutor, but alas, I'm headed out the door to cube one more time with the old set up.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

How has Hooting Mandrills played for you?

I've become pretty obsessed with delve because it plays so well in cube in my experience, and this is the one card I'm not running that I think may be good enough.
 
Hathaway

Hathaway

Cube Tutor list now updated to reflect a whole lot of cuts, additions, more cuts, a few more cuts, then correcting the cards like Kird Ape into the right spot.

Link: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/28489

I'm sure I need to add a few cards here and there to get the color balance more correct. I added the cards for each color to half the number of split/gold cards they had and came up with:

White: 62
Blue: 66
Black: 63
Red: 67
Green: 60

Obviously, this needs more actual drafts to get a better idea, but in the meantime, anywhere else I should go with this?
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

I typically count gold cards as a full card per colour if they're hybrid (ie, Kitchen Finks is both one green card and one white card) and focus on mono-colour card availability for balance, giving blue a few extras since blue is tipped heavily towards spells. I do a bunch of other calculations, of course, over playability, removal, etc, but for the simplest balance, aiming for monocolour availability is a great start in my opinion. To that end, assuming I haven't missed anything, you have..

W: 50+9=59 mono-white playables
U: 55+4=59 mono-blue playables
B: 49+8=57 mono-black playables
R: 54+10=64 mono-red playables
G: 47+8=55 mono-green playables

Some of these figures are a bit fudged; for example, I consider Chained to the Rocks mono-W in my format since I have double shocklands; getting a Plains Mountain and similar isn't too hard, allowing you to cast it without having a single issue. That said, these numbers, I think, are generally fair.

Obviously, what leaps out is red has way more, and green needs help. If you can cut 5 from red, you can give 4 to green and one to black. Adding an extra to black (for 2 new black cards total) would bring you at a nice, happy 59 per colour.

Things that might be nice in those new spots:
Elvish Mystic
Boon Satyr
Collected Company
Utopia Sprawl
Setessan Tactics
Dread Return
Ghastly Demise
Graveborn Muse

It's also a good idea to consider creature counts for balance - make sure you include token producers!
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Ghastly Demise is the real deal. It's a Pauper gem that is insanely easy to turn on in any deck which happens to also turn on easier if you have any graveyard enablers. No enablers? Well, it still scales nicely with any fair game of Magic. Few things in any non-powermax environ go over 4 toughness (few breach 3, really), so by T4-5 when those things show up, it isn't hard to have already cast a spell, had a creature die, crack a fetch.. etc. It's an extremely powerful and flexible card that asks virtually nothing of it caster while still being 1-mana, instant-speed removal. I've personally always considered it something like the black Swords to Plowshares, where you trade the exile upside for no life gain downside. It only underperforms if you have lots of cheaty bullshit, which is the only reason it doesn't show up more often - it gets a lot worse if you have an absurd number of rude combo decks shoveling out T3 8/8s, which isn't really the sort of Cube Riptiders build typically.
 
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