MTG Salvation

Quote from Ryperior74 »

I'm sure spoilers will start this week or the next.

I wouldn't bet on it. Last week in October is a safer guess. They seem to be delaying spoilers for longer now.

Panharmonicon is a card that begs to be abused in a combo deck, and Whirling Virtuoso seems to have to potential to either generate a lot of servos with Panharmonicon on the field, or even go infinite if you have a decoction module and either Saheeli Rai or a second decoction module or a second Panharmonicon. Because this also seems to play exceedingly well with Eerie Interlude and other ETB effects, I included white so I could grab some nice cards to abuse even if I don't get to go infinite. Another card to consider would be Eldrazi Displacer, though that requires a consistent source of colorless mana.

There may also be other color combinations worth considering, though I think Jeskai is the best one.

Here is the deck I've come up with.

I don't think going Grixis would be all that good. Giving up Angel of Invention is worth considering, but losing Cogworker's Puzzleknot would be a huge blow. Even without Panharmonicon that's three artifact triggers from one card, which is what this deck is all about. I was torn between cryptolith fragment and Prophetic Prism, but went with the fragment because it not only allows you to fix mana, it ramps you and helps deal more ping damage. It would be worth experimenting with both for sure. I'll see how Fortitous find plays out, it may very well get dropped for Unlicensed Disintegration or another better card.

Panharmonica seems like a card ripe for abuse in a combo deck, and this deck aims to deliver. Both Underhanded Designs and Reckless Fireweaver have wonderful triggers that alone could be annoying to your opponent, but when combined and Panharmonica thrown in, they could devestate your opponent quickly. Even without Panharmonica on the field, they'll quickly get you advantage, especially when combined with Puzzleknots and other artifacts that cause shenanigans when they come into play. Get your opponent low by pinging them repeatedly, then drop Panharmonica or Angel of Invention or even Noxious Gearhulk to finish the job. If your key cards get removed, use Fortitous Find to bring them back for more, or just recycle a Filigree Familiar and a Puzzleknot for more incremental advantage.

Don't laugh, but it was Krosan Colossus. It was a 9/9 creature! It was HUGE! I wanted it so very very badly, and I actually ended up opening it from an onslaught tournament pack (back when those were a thing). I was one very happy timmy.

Underhanded Designs seems like an ideal card to abuse along with Panharmonicon, cheap artifacts, and blink effects or recursion. The puzzleknots especially seem ripe for this, with their ETB triggers being good alone, and downright insane when you have Panharmonicon and Underhanded Designs out. Combine with some fabricate cards to create lots of little guys for you and it seems like you could build a decent combo engine here. Does anyone think this could actually be a deck?

That's certainly something to think about. I am trying to force a guild theme at the moment, so I may need to back off that and put the keyrunes back in. If I ever want to make fixing better, I can easily shuffle in all the guildgates into the packs and just make the Karoo's one of in each back, so that people end up with many more mana fixing cards.

Thanks for the tips on uploading to the cube! I'll do that this afternoon.

I actually had to nerf the fixing after a couple of playtests. It was TOO good. Everyone was playing 4 or 5 color "goodstuff" decks instead of going with a guild theme since they could easily pick up cluestones, karoo's or guildgates, and keyrunes to boot and end up with super mana fixed decks that just wanted to drop lots of juice multicolored guild cards. There was a good mixup between midrange, control, and aggro, though control ended up taking the lead by a decent margin. I'll post an updated list soon, but I took out guildgates, took out keyrunes, removed some common and uncommon cards to make decks more consistent. I also swapped in cards like Rakdos cackler to buff aggro a bit.

Quote from Dolono »

Looks neat. What informed your decision to include/not include certain cards? Personal experience? Draft statistics?

Is your cube up on cubetutor?

-D

It is on cube tutor, though not in it's current form, I'll have to update it and post a link. I also don't know how to include multiples or state that certain cards are included in every pack (gate or karoo) so I don't know if a digital draft would work. I haven't played with it much but I should.

As to what informed my card decisions, first was price. Certain iconic, powerful cards like doubling season, bob, and sphinx's revelation were left out simply because they cost more than I wanted to be spending (interestingly, this is why I have cluestones instead of signets, some signets are over $1.50 while cluestones are $.10. Go figure). Second was my personal experience drafting both sets. I've done this quite a bit, so I know that some cards are key to certain archetypes, like Fists of Ironwood or Delirum Skeins. Next was the curve I wanted each guild to have. I wanted Boros and Gruul to be able to curve out fast and get beats in fast, but Dimir and Azorius should be slower and more control oriented. I'll have to adjust certain cards to make sure that the guilds feel right after I've drafted it more than once. Last but certainly not least was making sure I didn't have too many of a certain card type. Traitorous Instinct and Act of Treason fill exactly the same space, one needs to go. Sundering growth or naturalize? Vandleblast or Shattering Spree? Which Niv-Mizzet to use? All of those things needed to be taken into consideration. Flavor was also a consideration. Wind Drake is a great limited card, but it's kinda boring. Instead, I used Freewind Equenaut. It's basically the same card, but it fits into the enchantment archetype better. It's given me a lot of respect for magic devs who do this from scratch for a set, because it's very easy to end up with a terribly unbalanced limited format. I think right now things are still off, but with more playtesting I'll know for sure.

Thanks for taking a look! Right now I'm looking for any tips and feedback on the cube people might have. This is my first attempt, and I've tried to balance things out but I'm still learning.

Ravnica has long been a favorite set of my playgroups to draft, and initially we attempted to create a standard singleton cube themed around the two blocks (Ravnica and Return to Ravnica) but it was decided that the cube was weak and inconsistent, and not much fun to draft. This is my own attempt at a cube type draft format, but instead of singletons using multiples. There will be 4 of each common, 2 of each uncommon, and 1 of each rare. Packs will be standard 15 card packs of 1 rare 3 uncommons and 10 commons with the land slot taken up by a karoo or guildgate. Astute readers will notice that I included 3 copies of Feldon's Cane, the only none Ravnica card. This is because in the past, mill was so strong that people just folded to it. I'll keep the cane out initially, but will add that or elixer of immortality of mill is dominating the cube, along with adjusting the number of mill cards.

Number of cards: 601
Commons: 232 (30 per color, 5 per guild, cluestones, karoos, guildgates + transguild prominade and riot gear)
Uncommons: 233 (20 per color, 10 per guild, keyrunes, double cards, civic sabre, feldon's cane and guild lands)
Mythic/Rares: 126 (10 per color, 7 per guild, double cards, guild artifact cycle, sword of the paruns)

Another great transaction with MTGO/cape fear games. I've used them about a dozen times for physical cards and MTGO and each time their prices are awesome, shipping is reasonable, and service is fast. Physical cards are in good condition and their bots are always very competitive for prices.

Yes, but only if it is not the first card cast that turn. For example, lets say you exile Illusory Angel and Phantasmal Bear. If you cast the bear first, you may then cast the angel as you will have cast another spell that turn. You will still have to pay any additional costs for casting a spell aside form mana (IE, Goblin Grenade will still make you sac a goblin as part of its cost) and follow any rules for casting the spell (A spell that requires a legal target must have one).

Edit: A more important note to your question: you cast the spells one at a time. So if I put one on the stack before the angel, I can then cast the angel.

I've drafted quite a bit of conspiracy now, and I have to say that the absolute blowout cards are the name sake of this set. Scoop up the conspiracys while you can! Something as innocent as a pillar field ox is degenerate when it costs 3, has haste, gets +1/1 and goes and finds your other 4 copies of it. Screaming Seahawks is right out. Iterative Analysis or Double Stroke are simply bonkers when paired with something like Brimstone Volley, Siphon Soul, Rousing of Souls or Brain Storm. But how scary is a simple moment of heroism when it gets copied or draws you card? The one thing to watch out for with conspiracies is that if you have a bunch of them, smart people make you a target ASAP. There are simply no bad conspiracies, with the exception of Advantageous Proclamation. In one on one it would be great. In multiplayer, the card is a liability plain and simple.

The defender deck truly shines in multiplayer, especially if you can get multiple vent sentinels with a nice conspiracy or two. Play the political game for a few turns, then blow things out with a king maker gambit that ends with everyone else stopped by your defenses while you safely sling fire.

The other amazing deck is B/W politics. The vote manipulation is OK, but removing key threats and using AOE from Siphon Soul and the like will hand you the game as long as you convince everyone you're just putting out fires.

I've had a lot of success with B/G constellation, snapping up every grim guardian and ESPECIALLY the Oakheart Dryads. If you get 3+ dryads they become very silly, especially if you get some Lampads to blitz through. Constellation really is a prize mechanic in triple JOU, so any deck that focuses on that is going to be at a real advantage.

In many situations, the card is very advantageous. I don't think it's a first pick kind of card by any means, but if you are in blue already it's very potent. Being able to either contain a threat, untap a blocker, or tap down an opponents blocker repeatedly is very useful over the course of a draft. Plus, it triggers constellation, which makes a bit of a difference in this block.