Card/Deck Three Colour Cards in Cube

[Aston]

I'm going to shamelessly quote myself from another forum (not MTGS) for a post which didn't get much feedback. I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me figure this out.

I have some thoughts I want to type up on three colour cards in cube.

I'm going to preface this by saying that my design philosophy with regard to cube is that you want as few "narrow" cards as possible that only go in one deck - stuff like storm enablers like Seething Song and cards which require three or more colours of mana - as in the majority of drafts they're going to end up as 15th picks rotting in someone's sideboard.

That said, on the back of Khans there are a lot of powerful new three colour cards and I'm thinking about maybe giving a few (specifically one of each three colour combination) of them a shot. However, for me, it's not enough for these cards to be powerful; the cube is already full of efficient creatures, and the trade-off of having three colour cards which are only going to make a maindeck in one out of three drafts or whatever means that simply being powerful is not enough. So for a three colour card to be a consideration, it has to both be powerful and have a unique or interesting effect that I can't find elsewhere.

For example, take Siege Rhino. There's no doubt that it is a very strong card and probably in a vacuum the best option for Abzan. However, I don't think it's enough better than similar cards like Bloodbraid Elf or Restoration Angel to warrant its inclusion. I think for this reason a better Abzan card is Doran the Siege Tower, as taking him early allows you to craft your deck around him and completely changes the draft dynamic. I figure, if you're going to include cards which are made narrow by virtue of their colours then you may as well have narrow effects whilst you're doing so.

That said, this opens up some other issues. Putting Doran in your cube is like making a promise to your players that there will be enough cards in the draft pool that support him to make a "Doran deck", and currently at least I'm not sure there are that many creatures in Abzan colours with significantly higher toughness than power that are cubeable. Courser of Kruphix is the only one that springs to mind, although of course Restoration Angel, Tarmogoyf, Noble Hierarch etc all benefit as well.

The second issue is that what if you build a Doran deck and only draw him in half your games or even none at all? You have a collection of big butts that don't really do anything. Doran is in a pretty good spot by virtue of being a green creature, so he's pretty easy to find, but this problem extends to the other three colour cards as well.

My question therefore is can you assist me in finding three colour cards which fit the above criteria? So far, I think Doran is a good choice for Abzan, Jeskai Ascendancy for Jeskai and possibly Sidisi for Sultai, but I'm coming up pretty short for the others. Even those would require a reasonable amount of re-jigging my cube so that their themes are supported.

Just to be clear, cards like Wild Nacatl and Taisgur are classed as single coloured in my cube since you don't need three colours to play them.

I'm going to finish by saying Sphinx of the Steel Wind (along with Siege Rhino) is what prompted this post since I think it has no place in any cube. I would be interested to hear counterarguments though.

For reference, here's my current list: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/6050

It's not really updated to Theros as I generally wait for standard rotation to pick stuff up cheap, but there are some random cards I've opened in limited from the last two blocks.

I think maybe a better example than Siege Rhino/Doran would be Mantis Rider/Jeskai Ascendancy - the Ascendancy directs your deckbuilding a lot more than the Mantis Rider would, it's harder to kill, and it can be searched up more easily due to Enlightened Tutor.

Let me know what you think! I've lurked here a little and maybe this is a bit much for a first post, but I would welcome all feedback/discussion.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

: Zur the Enchanter manages to dodge all the poisonous artifact love in Esper and is quite an interesting build-around card.
: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker will get people to draft Grixis every. single. time. Marchesa, the Black Rose has some interesting synergies, and Cruel Ultimatum is also a classic.
: Broodmate Dragon is the classic here, and probably the uncontested pick if you had to include one Jund card.
: Realm Razer is a surprisingly relevant threat, with the ability to lock up an advantageous board position like not many other cards can.
: Roon of the Hidden Realm is probably the funnest card, though Rafiq of the Many is the best 3-color card in this shard. Stoic Angel can be fun as well.
: Jeskai Ascendancy is pretty awesome.
: Sidisi, Brood Tyrant has to be the clear winner here.
: Butcher of the Horde is fun, but Fervent Charge is also secretly powerful in a color combination that wants to attack, attack, attack.
: Sarkhan Unbroken will surely attract people to this color combination.
: Doran, the Siege Tower is cool (Nyx-Fleece Ram and Disowned Ancestor are both playable on their own), but Karador, Ghost Chieftain is also an option and awesome with Shriekmaw and similar cards.

Also, welcome!

 

[Diakonov]

I have a Treefolk Harbinger in my cube with a sticker that additionally grants you Doran, the Siege Tower and Murmuring Bosk when you draft it. I've found that it somewhat resolves the issue of making it easier to get and play Doran when you've built the deck around him.

As far as other creatures that go well with him, the value-walls are solid (Wall of Omens, Wall of Blossoms, Wall of Roots). He also helps a bit against aggro in shrinking your opponents' 2/1's.

 

[James Stevenson]

I want to mention these:

I've had tremendous fun casting Maelstrom Wanderer as a control finisher. Not great in a deck full of counterspells, though.
I also like Warden of the Eye on the surface, though people have told me to cut it. Honestly I can't give much of an opinion because I've only one or two small drafts with it in the cube.
And I just like Woolly Thoctar. I wanna pet him.

But with your constraints, I'd only consider Maelstrom Wanderer out of those.

 

[spicewitch]

Doran's too narrow, IMO. You can't just throw in Doran. You'd have to layer in Butt Fight from FRF, and include plenty of cards that happen to be 2/3 or 3/4 or whatever but are still good, relevant, playable creatures when Doran's not around. Cards that are only good in a Doran deck are even worse than Doran, because at least Doran is exciting.

I would sooner go with something like Warden of the Eye because it winks and nods and nudges at your deckbuilding decisions, but doesn't dictate, constrain, and disrupt like a Doran pick does.

 

[GenericZero]

Some other gems worth mention might be these guys:

Abzan: Ghave Guru of the Spores
Sultai: The Mimeoplasm
Temur: Savage Knuckleblade, Animar, Intet, MAYBE Surrak
Jeskai: Lightning Angel
Jund: Sprouting Thrinax


...and that's all I got...sorry there is no card links. I'm on a phone and that's a lot of effort to do for me on here.

 

[Aston]

Doran's too narrow, IMO. You can't just throw in Doran. You'd have to layer in Butt Fight from FRF, and include plenty of cards that happen to be 2/3 or 3/4 or whatever but are still good, relevant, playable creatures when Doran's not around. Cards that are only good in a Doran deck are even worse than Doran, because at least Doran is exciting.

I would sooner go with something like Warden of the Eye because it winks and nods and nudges at your deckbuilding decisions, but doesn't dictate, constrain, and disrupt like a Doran pick does.

It makes me sad that this is almost certainly right. Curving Disowned Ancestor into Nyx-Fleece Ram into Doran is sweet, but Disowned Ancestor into Nyx-Fleece Ram into anything else is awful, and I think that's the much more likely scenario.

Karador is a sweet suggestion though and has the bonus of working super well with Sidisi if someone's brave enough to try it.

e: get Zur in there too attacking to summon Courser of Kruphix?

e2: Zur/Courser also works with Doran, back to square one!!

 

[Dom Harvey]

Zur into Assault Formation + Mardu Ascendancy!

Don't forget that Doran is still a 5/5 for 3 at worst, which is still respectable even in this age of ridiculous creatures

 

[Jason Waddell]

Zur into Assault Formation + Mardu Ascendancy!

Don't forget that Doran is still a 5/5 for 3 at worst, which is still respectable even in this age of ridiculous creatures

I think the best way to support Doran is not via things like Nyx-Fleece Ram, but through creatures like Deathrite Shaman, Birds of Paradise and Tarmogoyf that get subtle buffs from Doran's presence. Less of a build-around and more of a mild synergy card, since it's just a 1x.

It also provides a foil to many of the aggressive creatures around (x/1s). I would basically see it as a Woolly Thoctar with some small synergies, and treat it accordingly for design purposes. Don't build bigButts.dek.

The statement of "it goes well with Deathrite Shaman, Birds of Paradise and Tarmogoyf" is both ridiculous, and, I think indicative of where the good design lies. Don't pair it with otherwise unplayable junk, let it work with the good stuff that's already in your cube. Turn Deathrite from a 10/10 to a 12/10.

 

[Dom Harvey]

but if you turn it to a 12/10 it still only deals 10 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[vennythekid]

Not if you activate it's ability after attacking (assuming you give it vigilance somehow), you get 12. But if you're doing that, I'm pretty sure you're winning the game without Doran


In terms of three color cards, I only have one three color card "slot" in my 360 that I keep change up every week or two. I'd like to include more, because obviously three color cards are super cool and fun to play with, but I don't know if it would make for good balance.
Can you guys convince me one way or the other?

 

[Dom Harvey]

fuck balance, play what you want

 

[GenericZero]

But what if I want to play with balance without having to get my dick all over it?

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I still have a handful of three color cards in my Utility Land binder and I still haven't decided how players draft them. Allowing them to take them instead of a land is backwards: if you are cramming 3 color cards into your deck, particularly CDE cards you want to cast on curve, you need better mana, not worse mana. I'm thinking that if you want to, you can skip your round to grab a card out of the binder instead of taking your picks. This works well enough for Westchester draft, but not really for booster draft.

 

[Aston]

I haven't tried the utility land draft yet, but I did think perhaps having multicolour cards as an option there wouldn't be too bad? If you're committing to three-colour then you're probably not going to be able to afford to play too many of the cool mono colour or colourless lands, and the fixing options at least in Jason's list which I'm using for reference are a fair bit worse than the fetch/shock/ABU dual base you can get from the main cube.

 

[Aoret]

Some good ideas here already, I haven't taken much time to dream up more. That said, I'd ditch the idea of forcing yourself to maintain parity across every shard/wedge. Some of them have better options than others and you're going to have to do a shitload of work if you insist on keeping strict parity through every little possible categorization.

Start with a couple cards that slot really naturally into what you already have going on and go from there. If you're running a typical riptide cube, I'd vote for these two:


I run a pretty blatant rip-off of Jason's cube and slotted Ascendancy in last week, though I haven't seen it in a draft yet. I may give Sidisi a go soon.

 

[Aston]

I like Jeskai Ascendancy because it doesn't need too much to make it good - most decks probably play at least a few creatures and a few non-creature spells already! Sidisi on the other hand I think would require specific support; at the moment, the cards I have that put creatures straight into the graveyard in Sultai colours are:


It does sound sweet casting FoF or Gifts with a Sidisi in play, but without the support she's not much more than a mini Grave Titan. If I put her in, I think cards like Commune with the Gods and Satyr Wayfinder might find their way in as well. I already have Commune in the "testing" Cubetutor list, so it is a possibility.

Slightly off-topic, but after I posted this initially I was thinking about multicolour in general, and I can't see any reason why the criteria I listed above should be restricted to three-colour multicolour cards in the cube. For all my moaning about Siege Rhino, I still have Loxodon Smiter as one of the precious 5 Selesnya slots. So in my test cube list I've cut most/all multicolour creatures that are only included by virtue of their efficiency, and all multicolour removal spells, and replaced them with more unique effects. Has anyone else tried something like this?

Basically I want to play Worm Harvest in Cube.

Also whilst I was typing this I realised Zur the Enchanter can search up Athreos and got all giggly again.

 

[Aoret]

I'd argue that Sidisi probably doesn't need any additional support to be good enough, but maybe I'm wrong. I haven't actually played with the card. If you're running Gravecrawlers she seems pretty damn good to me already.

The more important point of my post though is that I'd strongly recommend disposing of any existing notions of having "5 Selesnya slots". CML has been saying this since the dawn of time and I used to just think he was crazy, but now I'm pretty sure he's right. Riptidelab has always been about eschewing notions of what cube "has to" be or do, yet a lot of us have (or had) held to notions like parity across various dimensions of our lists. If there aren't enough good cards for Jund or UB or whatever other random category you want to pick, just run more cards elsewhere. It's about fun max anyway right? Nobody is going to notice or care if you have 6 selesnya cards

 

[James Stevenson]

The more important point of my post though is that I'd strongly recommend disposing of any existing notions of having "5 Selesnya slots". CML has been saying this since the dawn of time and I used to just think he was crazy, but now I'm pretty sure he's right. Riptidelab has always been about eschewing notions of what cube "has to" be or do, yet a lot of us have (or had) held to notions like parity across various dimensions of our lists. If there aren't enough good cards for Jund or UB or whatever other random category you want to pick, just run more cards elsewhere. It's about fun max anyway right? Nobody is going to notice or care if you have 6 selesnya cards

Completely agree. I stopped keeping slots closely balanced years ago, and I have not cared one bit since. When you impose these rules you force yourself to make your cube worse. I have a great example: In my buddy's one-drop cube, he can't find a good UB one-drop, so he runs CREEPING TAR PIT. It makes no sense whatsoever, but he argues that there's nothing else. Then run nothing! Literally the only person that will notice is the guy building the cube.

 

[CML]

"what is this creeping tar pit doing in this cube?"
"it's the only u/b hybrid card. my other options are dream salvage, memory sluice, and oona's gatewarden"

o rly

 

[Diakonov]

I still have a handful of three color cards in my Utility Land binder and I still haven't decided how players draft them. Allowing them to take them instead of a land is backwards: if you are cramming 3 color cards into your deck, particularly CDE cards you want to cast on curve, you need better mana, not worse mana. I'm thinking that if you want to, you can skip your round to grab a card out of the binder instead of taking your picks. This works well enough for Westchester draft, but not really for booster draft.

Pair them with their respective tri-lands as a single pick?

Basically I want to play Worm Harvest in Cube.

I feel you, man.

 

[Lucre]

I don't think I'd try to include every colour combo.

I don't know if anyone remembers but I've discussed the idea of including a package of tri colour card + triland in some slots. It'd certainly make them strong picks but also very narrow strong picks if your cube is fast and packs decent disruption.

Enabling ultimatum isn't always so much about finding the mana you need as not getting hated out of the cubes best spells, while trying to also prioritize as much black life gain as possible, still that deck loves mana fixing.

 

[Aston]

The more important point of my post though is that I'd strongly recommend disposing of any existing notions of having "5 Selesnya slots". CML has been saying this since the dawn of time and I used to just think he was crazy, but now I'm pretty sure he's right. Riptidelab has always been about eschewing notions of what cube "has to" be or do, yet a lot of us have (or had) held to notions like parity across various dimensions of our lists. If there aren't enough good cards for Jund or UB or whatever other random category you want to pick, just run more cards elsewhere. It's about fun max anyway right? Nobody is going to notice or care if you have 6 selesnya cards

The slots thing for me is more a restriction to stop myself overloading on sweet multicolour cards. It might be arbitrary but it does help in preventing a cube that's half gold cards.

 

[Jason Waddell]

The slots thing for me is more a restriction to stop myself overloading on sweet multicolour cards. It might be arbitrary but it does help in preventing a cube that's half gold cards.

Yeah, I don't think it's a bad starting point. Everybody's natural inclination seems to be to overload gold. I remember painfully cutting to 6 gold cards per guild at one point, before making the adjustment to 3 per guild.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Fuck that shit, I run 16 gold cards per guild and 8 cards per shard, not including mana fixing. I only run 5 guilds and the matching 5 shards though. And it's a 450 cube. And it's based on Jason's idea for a gold environment that works... so there's that