I've started doing something like a rotisserie draft with my friends
((4 pods of 48 cards each, you get to burn a surrounding card each pick, 8 picks per pod))
and like a revelation the imbalances I've been having between aggro and control seemed to just disappear in a day. I played a bunch of ramp decks and aggro decks and creature-light control decks where I was just restocking and custodi squiring things... I even managed to almost deck myself (to be fair, the deck had basically no threats and my opponent was suboptimal so he couldn't take advantage). But this is great. It was a complete breath of fresh air. I even sided in counterspell into a deck that had no business casting it because I was deathly afraid of Maw of the obzedat (which killed me three games the turn he casted it...)
Has anyone else noticed a draft format completely altering the viability of certain decktypes (other than garbage like sealed or winston)?
My current problem now is that my best aggro plans are still often the ones where I stick a latch seeker and my opponent just doesn't have the way to race it... but I don't want to increase the amount of removal in my cube and removal.dec is not something I ever want to see again. I figure that the only other remedies are to
A) Find ways for slower decks to get some burst damage in a race or
B) find another card like feudkiller's verdict that can negate a bunch of those turns.
C) trim the number of unblockable guys, which would probably be a horrible blow to my favorite deck.
I still want every theater of deck to be accessible by all 10 color combinations, which is another concern I have to weigh.
In other news, my last two 8mans had 3 rakdos drafters each, with one of them winning. I won today with my first pick fire covenant, even though I never used it to kill more than one guy and win.
There were two aggro decks last night (mine and a somewhat weak drafter, who nonetheless had a good build with cards I want) and a controlly build, and last week there was an aggro, midrange, and control. This week aggro won, last week midrange won.
Also this week, there was a dimir drafter who hated several one drops from me and a R/x drafter (don't rememeber) who drafted a bunch of red one drops and didn't play them.
The dimir control/reanimator deck knocked out the deck that would have beaten me, for what it's worth (the deck with kitchen finks, mother of runes, path, swords, and harm's way) and my hymn to tourach managed to hit his porcelain legionnaire that I had no answer for.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/274
Last couple posts are Ori updates. I'm having trouble making red cuts the most, and still experimenting with some green stuff.
Shadows of the past is the card I have the least faith in that I'm testing.
Boros Charm because you think en masse indestructible will be more relevant?
Any interest in static anthem dudes? Paragon of New Dawns is kinda anemic on its own, but Celestial Crusader is much closer to acceptable as a 4-mana 2/2 flash flyer. Of course, the whole "ALL white creatures" thing can be randomly awful against you...
Boros charm because truefire paladin wasn't even being picked by the boros decks that highly since it's just a notch higher than the average 2 drop and not a priority. Hoping boros charm will facilitate a hyperaggressive boros strategy for the fireblast mode, and hoping it gets drafted by people in general. Trying not to resort to lightning helix.
I ran the static anthem dudes for a little while, but for 4 mana none of them really felt like much. The tack-on abilities are very meh. Celestial crusader really is the best one, but the both sides thing is really whack.
-10 trilands + 5 vivids. Each vivid supports one more deck so even though the overall number of lands decreases (the idea, since I felt a little saturated) the lands I cube with will be decked a little more often.
Hoping that geistcatcher's rig is actually good. Tezzeret's gambit may find a home with all the extra +1 counter things that are in.
Just fine, in limited action. It is the poor man's errant ephemeron, but EE is so good that it's alright.
Really its niche is a 1 mana play in a nonaggressive deck. This way, it acts like drawing a 0 mana 4/1 haste first strike on turn 5 (without costing you turn 2, like EE does) and that's actually pretty exciting.
I mean, half by archetype, probably 60+% by actual draft frequency if your environment has as little straight BG aggro as mine does. Admittedly, for a while I had no real aggro support for green in general, but several months ago I lowered the curve quite a bit and have since gone many many draft nights without seeing a BG deck that would want to be an Experiment One, Jungle Lion etc. deck.
Red/black/blue/green/white are probably the way I'd rank the frequency of colors in aggro for me. Red and black being very close, green and white being very close, and blue being closer to the top than the bottom.
Loyal pegasus
Keeps chugging along. Not 100 consistent, but acts like a suspend 2, 2/1 flier for 1 the most part. It fits my list mostly because I don't run all the grounded 2/1s, but this one is still more effective than I thought it would be.
Court street denizen
Haven't cubed since I added it, I've been more focused on my other list. I only remember it dominating for me at the prerelease events and a draft or two, so I have hopes for it.
War oracle
Hasn't shown up yet. Not to the card's detriment. New add.
Angelic renewal
Shows up in decks that want to play defense, and usually needs to have some of the upper echelon cards in it to double dip. Of course there's the obvious mulldrifter/shriekmaw synergy (and I think briarhorn), but blocking fire imps or difficult to bypass defenders (wall of razors, carven caryatid) can be compounded into a frustratingly effective wall too.
Illusory ambusher
Has drastically outperformed expectations. When playing against some combination of temur colored decks, you can even leave it in play and get the cards later while having a temporary board presence. Very surprised so far.
Capsize
Only re-added to support the big mana decks. Has been serviceable.
Distortion strike
I haven't played blue aggro since adding it, but I think it can be good. Also gives illusory angel a card to proc off of.
Homicidal seclusion.
Has been exactly the kind of gameplay I wanted. Narrow, but extremely dangerous and skill intensive.
Keldon halberdier
Fine. Midrange 1 drop more than anything.
Rite of the raging storm
I want to like it, haven't yet.
Hunting triad
Works just fine. Each mode costs 1 too much to be cubable, but this "charm" has been doing its job well enough in basically any build it ends up in. My friend even used it well in control. 6/10
Feral incarnation
Has been surprising, works very well with walls and devoted druid and tokens, can be cast for 6 mana easily in my list. Tier two, but works.
Basalt monolith
Part of the capsize, feral incarnation inclusion package. Spotty but strong, another skill tester I like so far.
The white Denizen was pretty bad for me, but that was 2+ years ago. It got a lot of triggers in games you'd likely win anyway, then did nothing in a bunch of other games when you'd wish it was a white Wind Drake instead.
I might be misreading your message here, but it doesn't do anything on T3 to help your 1's and 2's. It waits for ANOTHER white creature to enter for it to trigger.
Honestly, I think I happen to have an environment that happens to work with angelic renewal more than the card could under arbitrary circumstances. Then again, I'm not running a few cards that make the card nastier (mother of runes, coalition honor guard, more value creatures like skinrender) and most of the card's value comes from correctly identifying when getting a second copy of cards that aren't necessarily blink targets, like mom, is going to be worth trying to manufacture. I would nor fault someone for trying it or not.
Also, honestly, court street denizen is just getting replaced by topplegeist anyway. Viva la revolucion
((4 pods of 48 cards each, you get to burn a surrounding card each pick, 8 picks per pod))
and like a revelation the imbalances I've been having between aggro and control seemed to just disappear in a day. I played a bunch of ramp decks and aggro decks and creature-light control decks where I was just restocking and custodi squiring things... I even managed to almost deck myself (to be fair, the deck had basically no threats and my opponent was suboptimal so he couldn't take advantage). But this is great. It was a complete breath of fresh air. I even sided in counterspell into a deck that had no business casting it because I was deathly afraid of Maw of the obzedat (which killed me three games the turn he casted it...)
Has anyone else noticed a draft format completely altering the viability of certain decktypes (other than garbage like sealed or winston)?
My current problem now is that my best aggro plans are still often the ones where I stick a latch seeker and my opponent just doesn't have the way to race it... but I don't want to increase the amount of removal in my cube and removal.dec is not something I ever want to see again. I figure that the only other remedies are to
A) Find ways for slower decks to get some burst damage in a race or
B) find another card like feudkiller's verdict that can negate a bunch of those turns.
C) trim the number of unblockable guys, which would probably be a horrible blow to my favorite deck.
I still want every theater of deck to be accessible by all 10 color combinations, which is another concern I have to weigh.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
Haven't seen it enough
In other news, my last two 8mans had 3 rakdos drafters each, with one of them winning. I won today with my first pick fire covenant, even though I never used it to kill more than one guy and win.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
Also this week, there was a dimir drafter who hated several one drops from me and a R/x drafter (don't rememeber) who drafted a bunch of red one drops and didn't play them.
The dimir control/reanimator deck knocked out the deck that would have beaten me, for what it's worth (the deck with kitchen finks, mother of runes, path, swords, and harm's way) and my hymn to tourach managed to hit his porcelain legionnaire that I had no answer for.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Last couple posts are Ori updates. I'm having trouble making red cuts the most, and still experimenting with some green stuff.
Shadows of the past is the card I have the least faith in that I'm testing.
More and more blue control elements leak away...
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Going deep on the tokens now
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Any interest in static anthem dudes? Paragon of New Dawns is kinda anemic on its own, but Celestial Crusader is much closer to acceptable as a 4-mana 2/2 flash flyer. Of course, the whole "ALL white creatures" thing can be randomly awful against you...
I ran the static anthem dudes for a little while, but for 4 mana none of them really felt like much. The tack-on abilities are very meh. Celestial crusader really is the best one, but the both sides thing is really whack.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
-10 trilands + 5 vivids. Each vivid supports one more deck so even though the overall number of lands decreases (the idea, since I felt a little saturated) the lands I cube with will be decked a little more often.
Hoping that geistcatcher's rig is actually good.
Tezzeret's gambit may find a home with all the extra +1 counter things that are in.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/380412 Concept deck, not optimized
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
Really its niche is a 1 mana play in a nonaggressive deck. This way, it acts like drawing a 0 mana 4/1 haste first strike on turn 5 (without costing you turn 2, like EE does) and that's actually pretty exciting.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Decided that wild nactl being only playable in 1/2 of all aggro decks makes it a liability compared to the otherwise worse scythe leopard.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Keeps chugging along. Not 100 consistent, but acts like a suspend 2, 2/1 flier for 1 the most part. It fits my list mostly because I don't run all the grounded 2/1s, but this one is still more effective than I thought it would be.
Court street denizen
Haven't cubed since I added it, I've been more focused on my other list. I only remember it dominating for me at the prerelease events and a draft or two, so I have hopes for it.
War oracle
Hasn't shown up yet. Not to the card's detriment. New add.
Angelic renewal
Shows up in decks that want to play defense, and usually needs to have some of the upper echelon cards in it to double dip. Of course there's the obvious mulldrifter/shriekmaw synergy (and I think briarhorn), but blocking fire imps or difficult to bypass defenders (wall of razors, carven caryatid) can be compounded into a frustratingly effective wall too.
Illusory ambusher
Has drastically outperformed expectations. When playing against some combination of temur colored decks, you can even leave it in play and get the cards later while having a temporary board presence. Very surprised so far.
Capsize
Only re-added to support the big mana decks. Has been serviceable.
Distortion strike
I haven't played blue aggro since adding it, but I think it can be good. Also gives illusory angel a card to proc off of.
Homicidal seclusion.
Has been exactly the kind of gameplay I wanted. Narrow, but extremely dangerous and skill intensive.
Keldon halberdier
Fine. Midrange 1 drop more than anything.
Rite of the raging storm
I want to like it, haven't yet.
Hunting triad
Works just fine. Each mode costs 1 too much to be cubable, but this "charm" has been doing its job well enough in basically any build it ends up in. My friend even used it well in control. 6/10
Feral incarnation
Has been surprising, works very well with walls and devoted druid and tokens, can be cast for 6 mana easily in my list. Tier two, but works.
Basalt monolith
Part of the capsize, feral incarnation inclusion package. Spotty but strong, another skill tester I like so far.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Honestly, I think I happen to have an environment that happens to work with angelic renewal more than the card could under arbitrary circumstances. Then again, I'm not running a few cards that make the card nastier (mother of runes, coalition honor guard, more value creatures like skinrender) and most of the card's value comes from correctly identifying when getting a second copy of cards that aren't necessarily blink targets, like mom, is going to be worth trying to manufacture. I would nor fault someone for trying it or not.
Also, honestly, court street denizen is just getting replaced by topplegeist anyway. Viva la revolucion
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article