I've been having issues with red getting drafted in my cube lately. The color is just not appealing to draft in casual drafts due to it's linear and uninspiring archetypes. Mono red aggro is probably the strongest archetype in my cube, but I still see Koth and Sulfuric Vortex tabling.
Has anyone else run into this issue? I am thinking about completely revamping my red section to make it more interesting to play. The color will probably be a lot weaker, but it's worth it if it actually gets drafted. Right now, I see two possible directions to go with the color:
1. Goblins / Tribal: This wouldn't do too much for the drafting experience (goblins is a very linear strategy too), but it would make games much more interesting to play. The only problem with this is it forces mono red even more than it is now if you want to go hard into goblins.
2. Artifact / Metalcraft: I could see adding a lot of artifact matters support to red to make it interesting. Key cards would be Wildfire / Burning of Xinye, Shrapnel Blast, Goblin Welder, etc. This would push Izzet towards heavy artifacts. I'm kind of interested in trying this, but it might make red way too weak.
We play a big red Wildfire/Burning of Xinye package, in addition to using red as a support color for graveyard decks, the artifact.dec. and token builds.
But red is insanely powerful, and red aggro is super popular (both heavy/mono red and R/X variants). So I don't consider it a "problem" that needs fixing. Red contributes to aggro, midrange and control, and plays well across 3-4 different archetypes too. A spectacular color in the cube.
I tried forcing red in a few drafts using your cube. Here's what I came up with:
http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/154772
This deck seems pretty aggressive and pretty powerful. It wants a better manabase to be able to reliably throw dudes at its oppnent, but it doesn't seem like a weak deck by any means.
http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/154803
I didn't have a red pick until like 3rd pack, but I was still determined to force red aggro. Ended up with this deck. I thought I was going to be RWB, but I didn't have the fixing to justify it when I could just play all of my solid red and white cards. Low, low curve so I decided to play 15 lands.
http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/154812
This is a pretty clunky Wildfire deck. I first picked Ajani Vengeant in a pack that had a lot of white cards and a Figure of Destiny, hoping to force red aggro again. There were no red cards in my second pack and there was a Wildfire in my third pack. I decided to try forcing non-green Wildfire as an archetype. I think I focused too much on picking planeswalkers and threats that would survive Wildfire and didn't see enough enabler cards like Thran Dynamo.
wtwlf123, that is basically exactly what I'm going for in Red. Artifact and token support with some interesting cards. I think I'm going to at least add another Wildfire and Tempt with Vengeance, and probably try to add a bunch of mana rocks. I'll at least add Thran Dynamo and Worn Powerstone, and maybe some others. I'll probably do some research on some other interesting Red artifact cards.
crszovc, I'd be surprised if you couldn't force a solid mono red aggro deck. I suppose I don't know exactly how the AI works, but I don't have problems with it in person (again because no one likes to draft it). Thanks for doing some drafts, it helps to get some direct feedback. I'll definitely be adding some mana rocks.
Mana rocks aren't necessarily vital. They just enable non-green decks to "ramp," and they're crucial to non-green Wildfire and Upheaval decks.
Mana rocks are useful because they "survive" Wildfire where lands you ramped into might not (you really needed to cast Wildfire to not lose next turn or something), and they're important to Upheaval because you can cast them after you cast Upheaval with mana you have floating while you can generally only play one land tops.
This makes cards like Worn Powerstone, Thran Dynamo (and/or Sissay's Ring), and Everflowing Chalice useful because they can accelerate you more than "one turn" and they can also produce an excess amount of mana with just one permanent. Lands that produce 2 like City of Traitors are powerful for the same reason, but again, Wildfire and Upheaval "symmetrically" hurt your lands. It's not to say that it's necessary to add more mana rocks, as they generally feel clunky in most other decks (but still useful to control and midrange); they just help Wildfire/Upheaval style decks a lot.
As for making your players "appreciate" red more, you just need to show them the power of it. Stomp them with mono red or red-based aggro. Blow them out with a Wildfire deck. Snatch their last few life points with a Lightning Bolt in your midrange deck when they think they've stabilized.
Well, Wildfire is one of my favorite red decks to play. It's a great "shell" for planeswalker control ("superfriends"), I find, and that's another of my favorite decks. If your group likes the Wildfire deck, you could add Burning of Xinye and/or Destructive Force.
I see you're running a lot of red's combo cards, like Goblin Welder and Kiki-Jiki. Consider adding Splinter Twin for more combo shenanigans. There's also Squee, Goblin Nabob and Pyrewild Shaman, which can pad out cards that have discarding (and to a lesser extent, sacrificing) as a cost.
The problem you'll run into with Tribal Goblins (or any tribe, really), or even "artifacts matter", is that if two players are going for the strategy at the same time, it's likely neither of them will be able to successfully and effectively use it. Lorwyn's tribal limited padded this issue out with changelings at each rarity and open-ended tribal spells like Pack's Disdain.
Consider talking to your players about their favorite red cards. Even if they're "only" pet cards, you might be able to make them more exciting in cube through synergies or with similar but more effective cards.
Guttersnipe and Talarand are good ideas, I can try some cards like that. I've also tried Delver once upon a time, it might be time to give that another shot.
I could also dust off Sarkan Vol and see how he fairs nowadays.
Delver of Secrets can be unreliable. You generally want a higher land to spell ratio in your limited decks than you do in your contsructed Delver decks, and you generally want to play more of the one-mana cantrip spells like Ponder, Preordain, or really Brainstorm in your Delver decks. You also want a playset of Delvers.
I'm not saying delver is bad in cube, I'm just saying no one is happy when their Delver is stuck as a 1/1 for a few turns.
I should probably clarify. The whole point of this thread is to make red appealing to draft / play. I can't seem to find a way to do that.
Everyone knows red is very strong, and probably the easiest color to win with, but that doesn't make it fun to play.
Your group doesn't like aggro or burn? Weird, I love just burning my way through to the kill.
Red tokens has been performing well and has been universally liked. You could add land destruction as an archetype, but a lot of people don't like that for some reason
Wildfire is an option that is easy to support. Storm could be an option, even outside storm Empty the Warrens has been great.
We also tried Mana Flare (together with the green flares). It can be a pure ramp style deck, with big hitters and big Balls or you can go all out and suport a combo version, with untap effects.
In our cube, white aggro is easier to draft and win with as pure red aggro, which often seems to be lacking intelligence (Disenchant, evasion) to be a consistent winner.But thatmight be because burn gets stolen by other colours and we support token quite a bit.
Maybe it is just my group that doesn't enjoy playing red Aggro, I wasn't sure if it was a normal problem. I'll try out some of the ideas above and see how it goes.
It's possible to draft red. You have all the key cards. It's just a matter of getting your players to want to draft it. I have friends who will under no circumstance draft a Jackal Pup. Not a ton you can do about that.
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That's probably due to all the people from here trying to force red in your cube, as a result of this thread. Ha!
My 2 cents: if your group doesn't like the linear red aggro strategy, you should swap it out for a while and see how it goes. There's no point in having an objectively strong archetype in there if no-one drafts it, and if it warps your environment too much it's pretty easy to swap back in.
I've tried the red token strategy, and it's been very popular. Cards like Purphoros, Tempt with Vengeance, Guttersnipe, Young Pyro, Goblin Bombardment (a very fun and underrated card!), even Burn at the Stake have all been used.
UR counterburn with the Kiki-Jiki/Splinter Twin combo is also a very popular non-aggro red deck.
There are lots of quality sweepers and big red spells that don't get cubed often to make room for the needed aggro redundancy (and the damage they do the the typical red little aggro dudes). You'd have room for more cards like Form of the Dragon, Crater Hellion, Akroma, Angel of Vengeance, etc.
I'm experimenting with Punisher effects, assymetrical effects, cloning, and other such effects to see if it's possible to play more of a "reactive red" in some circumstances while retaining some traditional red board states. I like Wildfire, played it "back in the day" and some variant stax decks, but can't really see it as the perfect controller.
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Has anyone else run into this issue? I am thinking about completely revamping my red section to make it more interesting to play. The color will probably be a lot weaker, but it's worth it if it actually gets drafted. Right now, I see two possible directions to go with the color:
1. Goblins / Tribal: This wouldn't do too much for the drafting experience (goblins is a very linear strategy too), but it would make games much more interesting to play. The only problem with this is it forces mono red even more than it is now if you want to go hard into goblins.
2. Artifact / Metalcraft: I could see adding a lot of artifact matters support to red to make it interesting. Key cards would be Wildfire / Burning of Xinye, Shrapnel Blast, Goblin Welder, etc. This would push Izzet towards heavy artifacts. I'm kind of interested in trying this, but it might make red way too weak.
Let me know if you have any other ideas! Here's my list for reference: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/11000
But red is insanely powerful, and red aggro is super popular (both heavy/mono red and R/X variants). So I don't consider it a "problem" that needs fixing. Red contributes to aggro, midrange and control, and plays well across 3-4 different archetypes too. A spectacular color in the cube.
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http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/154772
This deck seems pretty aggressive and pretty powerful. It wants a better manabase to be able to reliably throw dudes at its oppnent, but it doesn't seem like a weak deck by any means.
http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/154803
I didn't have a red pick until like 3rd pack, but I was still determined to force red aggro. Ended up with this deck. I thought I was going to be RWB, but I didn't have the fixing to justify it when I could just play all of my solid red and white cards. Low, low curve so I decided to play 15 lands.
http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/154812
This is a pretty clunky Wildfire deck. I first picked Ajani Vengeant in a pack that had a lot of white cards and a Figure of Destiny, hoping to force red aggro again. There were no red cards in my second pack and there was a Wildfire in my third pack. I decided to try forcing non-green Wildfire as an archetype. I think I focused too much on picking planeswalkers and threats that would survive Wildfire and didn't see enough enabler cards like Thran Dynamo.
wtwlf123, that is basically exactly what I'm going for in Red. Artifact and token support with some interesting cards. I think I'm going to at least add another Wildfire and Tempt with Vengeance, and probably try to add a bunch of mana rocks. I'll at least add Thran Dynamo and Worn Powerstone, and maybe some others. I'll probably do some research on some other interesting Red artifact cards.
crszovc, I'd be surprised if you couldn't force a solid mono red aggro deck. I suppose I don't know exactly how the AI works, but I don't have problems with it in person (again because no one likes to draft it). Thanks for doing some drafts, it helps to get some direct feedback. I'll definitely be adding some mana rocks.
Mana rocks are useful because they "survive" Wildfire where lands you ramped into might not (you really needed to cast Wildfire to not lose next turn or something), and they're important to Upheaval because you can cast them after you cast Upheaval with mana you have floating while you can generally only play one land tops.
This makes cards like Worn Powerstone, Thran Dynamo (and/or Sissay's Ring), and Everflowing Chalice useful because they can accelerate you more than "one turn" and they can also produce an excess amount of mana with just one permanent. Lands that produce 2 like City of Traitors are powerful for the same reason, but again, Wildfire and Upheaval "symmetrically" hurt your lands. It's not to say that it's necessary to add more mana rocks, as they generally feel clunky in most other decks (but still useful to control and midrange); they just help Wildfire/Upheaval style decks a lot.
As for making your players "appreciate" red more, you just need to show them the power of it. Stomp them with mono red or red-based aggro. Blow them out with a Wildfire deck. Snatch their last few life points with a Lightning Bolt in your midrange deck when they think they've stabilized.
Everyone knows red is very strong, and probably the easiest color to win with, but that doesn't make it fun to play.
I see you're running a lot of red's combo cards, like Goblin Welder and Kiki-Jiki. Consider adding Splinter Twin for more combo shenanigans. There's also Squee, Goblin Nabob and Pyrewild Shaman, which can pad out cards that have discarding (and to a lesser extent, sacrificing) as a cost.
The problem you'll run into with Tribal Goblins (or any tribe, really), or even "artifacts matter", is that if two players are going for the strategy at the same time, it's likely neither of them will be able to successfully and effectively use it. Lorwyn's tribal limited padded this issue out with changelings at each rarity and open-ended tribal spells like Pack's Disdain.
Consider talking to your players about their favorite red cards. Even if they're "only" pet cards, you might be able to make them more exciting in cube through synergies or with similar but more effective cards.
I think Goblin Bombardment is a fun "build around me" card.
I could also dust off Sarkan Vol and see how he fairs nowadays.
I'm not saying delver is bad in cube, I'm just saying no one is happy when their Delver is stuck as a 1/1 for a few turns.
Your group doesn't like aggro or burn? Weird, I love just burning my way through to the kill.
Red tokens has been performing well and has been universally liked. You could add land destruction as an archetype, but a lot of people don't like that for some reason
Wildfire is an option that is easy to support. Storm could be an option, even outside storm Empty the Warrens has been great.
We also tried Mana Flare (together with the green flares). It can be a pure ramp style deck, with big hitters and big Balls or you can go all out and suport a combo version, with untap effects.
In our cube, white aggro is easier to draft and win with as pure red aggro, which often seems to be lacking intelligence (Disenchant, evasion) to be a consistent winner.But thatmight be because burn gets stolen by other colours and we support token quite a bit.
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It's possible to draft red. You have all the key cards. It's just a matter of getting your players to want to draft it. I have friends who will under no circumstance draft a Jackal Pup. Not a ton you can do about that.
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My 2 cents: if your group doesn't like the linear red aggro strategy, you should swap it out for a while and see how it goes. There's no point in having an objectively strong archetype in there if no-one drafts it, and if it warps your environment too much it's pretty easy to swap back in.
I've tried the red token strategy, and it's been very popular. Cards like Purphoros, Tempt with Vengeance, Guttersnipe, Young Pyro, Goblin Bombardment (a very fun and underrated card!), even Burn at the Stake have all been used.
UR counterburn with the Kiki-Jiki/Splinter Twin combo is also a very popular non-aggro red deck.
There are lots of quality sweepers and big red spells that don't get cubed often to make room for the needed aggro redundancy (and the damage they do the the typical red little aggro dudes). You'd have room for more cards like Form of the Dragon, Crater Hellion, Akroma, Angel of Vengeance, etc.
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