Okay, Fate Reforged Update time!
This is the end of what is traditionally a very busy period for the cube - January and February are usually full of Christmas and Birthday-related changes, along with the usual set updates. We should be pretty settled until the next set update in May now.
This update was seven cards wide - it brings in three FRF cards, one KTK card that we'd been waiting on, a BotG card that fell into our budget... and two complete and utter bombs. Ready?
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death in for Prodigal Pyromancer: We had so many potential victims at CC3 red that Alesha was a mortal lock to get in. But she's fun and encourages attacking (and makes Rogue's Passage even more valuable, if that's possible). Pyro was getting last-picked by this stage. One-damage Tims are so 2014, apparently.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest in for Thrummingbird: The Little Bird That Could has finally had his run ended, and it took the dumping of almost every proliferate card in the cube to do it (Pro Tip: If you're building a Pauper or Peasant MP Cube, Thrummingbird is likely still very, very good). In the end, proliferate strategies probably relied upon you drafting some ridiculous Super Friends deck, and most of the 'walkers in the cube are too highly valued to allow you to do that. Shu Yun plays into Izzet Guttersnipe / Spells Matter, and throws around double strike, so he'll certainly see some run.
Yasova Dragonclaw in for Boon Satyr: Removal is prevalent enough in the cube that nobody was willing to run Boonie as a pseudo-removal spell, even with an Enchantress theme present. Yasova is just pure political fun.
Clever Impersonator in for Viral Drake: The final proliferate drop, Viral Drake actually saw some play but never activation (and was therefore basically ending up as a 1/4 flier with infect). Impersonator is much, much more useful than that.
Prophetic Flamespeaker in for Archetype of Aggression: Anything with the words "Double strike, trample" printed on it is guaranteed to be fun. Archetype was basically placeholding for a card from the same set (irony!), so out it goes.
Mind's Eye in for Jayemdae Tome: The Tome was holding a spot for Mind's Eye for an eternity, and we finally get to make the swap. Is it better than Rhystic Study or Deathreap Ritual? Who knows? But it's close, and it's colourless (so it goes in any old deck).
Kokusho, the Evening Star in for Dread: I brought up the possibility of sourcing a Kokusho in this update with my group a week or so back, and got the response "Oh, that would be awesome!"... so here he is! KokoPuff is pretty much universally agreed to be the quintessential 6CC+ black finisher of choice. Dread was an excellent rattlesnake in our cube, but Kokusho is too, and isn't a triple-black CC to boot.
Changes are up now on CubeTutor. The physical cards themselves are about a week and a half away, and we should be able to test-drive in a fortnight.
"No more changes until May", he said. Ha. Silly fool.
Had a couple of upgrades due to cards falling out of decks. These didn't get met with too much resistance, as you could imagine:
Wheel of Fortune in for Molten Psyche: I think I've seen the Metalcraft matter about once total... it's very hard to reach. Once you get that out of the way, Wheel is more splashable, and is guaranteed to hand you more cards.
Basilisk Collar in for Gorgon Flail:Almost a strictly better card. Collar adds lifelink and is cheaper to cast. I think it's going to be pretty popular.
Okay, I'm done for a while now. Promise.
We're hopefully suiting up for a draft of the new stuff tomorrow night. If we do, I'll stick a match report up.
So we're rounding out the list of changes for our DTK update. The crux of it is that we will drop the underperforming Elemental tribe to bring in a vague Dragon Tribal theme (in the sense that we will have a bunch of dragons, including Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, who plays nicely with other dragons, and a tutor to fetch them all). We'll probably end up with somewhere around 10-11 dragons in the cube once we're done (we were at four - Shivan, Niv 1.0, Steel Hellkite and Kokusho).
We had a cube meet last night, and, given I have some of the cards available already, rolled some of them in in advance of the main update:
Feldon of the Third Path in for Incandescent Soulstoke: The Elemental lord goes out for someone who is likely too good to leave out of the cube. Encourages Grixis reanimator decks, plays nicely with artifact stuff, and is likely to jump for joy when Wurmcoil Engine comes in.
Thundermaw Hellkite in for Kiln Fiend: Fiend was possibly card #360 by this point. It pretends to play nicely with Izzet / Spells Matter, and wants to be an Elemental worth tutoring for... but in practise it's simply too vulnerable and never big when you want it to be. It ended up a common last-pick. Thundermaw is one of the things we're raising red's curve for, but it's going to have an outing alright, given the increasing amount of token strategies in the cube.
Utvara Hellkite in for Smokebraider: Another big throw-out of the curve, but also another last-pick going out. No-one was playing Elemental Tribal, so no-one was drafting Smokebraider. The Hellkite plays really nicely with other dragons, and is deservingly at the top of red's creature curve. I look forward to sticking Whispersilk Cloak on it already.
Flameblast Dragon in for Hateflayer: The Flaya was loved, but this is basically a straight swap... top end Elemental that can burn stuff replaced by top end Dragon that can burn stuff.
We've managed to lay hands on a fair few of the cards for our DTK update already (I'm naturally still missing the expensive ones!), so we've rolled some of the proposed changes in already:
Wurmcoil Engine in for Triskelion: One of the big ones we were targetting. Managed to get a hold of the red C14 deck, so in he goes. Trike could almost have stayed himself, given the cards we're bringing in, but it's starting to get seriously tight in these slots.
Goblin Welder in for Flamekin Harbinger: The last remaining Elemental Tribal piece falls out to let us start welding with Wurmcoil.
Impact Tremors in for Volcanic Fallout: My playgroup seems to shy away from global damage spells like this (Earthquake and Hurricane left the cube a long time ago for this very reason). Fallout was about the last spell left that did this, mostly because this slot has been thin on the ground. No more. Can't argue with half a Purphoros for two mana.
Sarkhan's Triumph in for Wild Ricochet: The single Dragon Tribal card we are adding. Once we've finished our DTK update, I believe this will be capable of tutoring for around 16 cards, and most of them are finishers (so "2R: Hand me yon finisher" is not too bad a deal). I will always be fond of Wild Ricochet - it reads "Counter target counterspell", and does all sorts of horrible things to opposing Blatant Thieveries... but it just wasn't being decked. Maybe it will sneak back in one day.
Damnable Pact in for Exsanguinate: Exsanguinate is obviously one of the most powerful Multiplayer cards available, but it's also easily one of the least interactive. It got to the point where it had been overdone in our meta outside of the cube as a kill spell, and we had a couple of cube games where everyone got a head of steam up only to have the guy across the table go "Exsanguinate for 9. GG"... and everyone blinks, stops for a second, and then morosely shuffles up. Cube is meant to be fun, and there's nothing fun about someone going "I pay ten mana and end the game, no matter what your board state is like". Damnable Pact is the same CC, but has a world of applications (and, as someone independently pointed out, it's pretty funny next to Fate Unraveler).
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury in for Kulrath Knight: Kulrath probably lasted this long because it was a Knight. Kolaghan is close to being the same CC, much fatter, capable of being tricky to remove (if you dash it), pumps token decks, plays nicely with other dragons... he's a clear step-up in power level.
Cabal Coffers in for Unholy Grotto: Grotto was definitely the bottom land card in the cube - not too many have been playing Zombies of late. Although we don't classify our lands according to their colours, it was always going to be nice to try and swap it with a better black-aligned land, so it was always going to be Coffers or Volrath's Stronghold. My single Stronghold is decked right now, but I stumbled upon a copy of the Coffers. I suspect I might have to end up swapping it back out for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (which will enable all colours, not just black), but we're not sneezing at it for now.
Lord of the Undead in for Corrosive Mentor: The Mentor was in this weird kind of zone for a cube card... it had made it in because it was an Elemental, but no-one ever played the tribe. It was just strong enough to sneak into the odd black-heavy deck, and remained serviceable... but now that the Elemental tribe is gone, it had some questions asked of its existence. Given we dropped Unholy Grotto, and I had a Lord of the Undead undecked, why not add the Zombie lord that does exactly the same thing? Hopefully this might push Zombie Tribal a little again (especially seeing as I'm hoping to add Sidisi, Undead Vizier shortly, too). We may be one or two cards off making it a power tribe like Knights, but we'll get there.
Blasphemous Act in for Warstorm Surge: Finally, another cracking card out of the C14 deck. This is one I've been meaning to get in for ages. It probably means the death-knell for Chain Reaction (as I want to limit the number of sweepers in each colour, or the cube becomes less interactive) - we'll seek to swap it for Outpost Siege shortly, I suspect.
I believe we'll be looking at around six cards changing for the final DTK update in a few weeks. We'll likely be test-driving with these changes next week, though.
I should add that we had an absolutely smashing cube night following on from the last update, but I simply didn't have enough time to post a match report. Of the four cards we swapped in, only one hit play - that was Flameblast Dragon, which got a swing in and blew something away before it got it in the neck. So it did about what we expected it to. Win.
We had two drafts of the cube - one with five for a free-for-all, and again with six for a 3-on-3 match. We had a new guy come along who hadn't slung cards in about a decade, and he had a blast.
There are rules about the new guy winning, and he did win the free-for-all - he drafted a superbly-curved Azorius deck that dealt early damage with Knight of Meadowgrain and Daxos of Meletis before settling into its usual control method and hanging around for the game. I had a cracking Simic deck that showed Oracle of Mul Daya to be the house it is for the first time in the cube - it ramped the hell out of my deck, and I plonked Memnarch down and took control of things. Of course, I'd built the deck around Deadeye Navigator, and the bottom two cards of my library turned out to be Deadeye and Eternal Witness (the one thing that could've recurred everything all over again). I'd ramped so hard that I left myself with those two cards in my library by the time I got around to our new guy, thinking I could control things with Memnarch for two turns and do the job... only to miscalculate and let Daxos under my guard and halve my turn count. Oh dear.
The three-on-three game saw five of the six players draft red! Myself and of my mates sitting next to me both somehow managed to draft Mardu successfully at the same time - he got the removal and the fat end, while I got the Knights and the sticks. Mrs. Bl00m had gone even harder at red and ramped up to the swinging Flameblast Dragon followed by something hot for the win (RSZ, from memory... it's been a couple of weeks now).
Considering the fact we've had two weddings in our playgroup in the last month, and I've been on holiday in the middle, cube games have been a bit thin on the ground. We'll be rectifying that in the coming weeks!
Okay, we've got some of our remaining targets in the cube now, and finally got another cube match in. So changes and match report time...
Sidisi, Undead Vizier in for Thrashing Wumpus: Mr. Wump is pretty good, but suffered from my playgroup's fear of global damage (so he didn't get run often, though he did combo very nicely with Loxodon Warhammer). Sidisi looks capable of being very busted with our current black suite in the cube. He plays with creature sacrifice / reanimation, and he's a Zombie to boot. I'd take a 4/6 deathtoucher for five mana as it is... Diabolic Intent stapled on top? ReeeeDONKulous.
Keiga, the Tide Star in for Frost Titan: Frosty was always going to be the first Titan we dropped... he's by far the weakest of the five. With our increased emphasis on vague Dragon tribal post-DTK, it was noted that Keiga was one of the obvious dragons already in existence that we were distinctly lacking.
Sunscorch Regent in for Celestial Ancient: The Ancient was good, but it tended to be a little clunky (in that when playing Enchantress you want to load up one fat creature, whereas Ancient wants you to play tokens and then just randomly spam the board with enchantments... it ended up being slightly counter-intuitive to the archetype). When it suddenly ran up against the Regent, which is an Ajani's Pridemate on 'roids, combined with the baddest Soul Warden to ever see print, it stood no chance, no matter how loaded 5CC white is in our cube.
Falkenrath Aristocrat in for Lightning Reaver: I have a man-crush for the Reaver, but he didn't see much play. The Aristocrat is extremely hard to kill, plays with reanimation quite well, and even has a motherlode of Humans to interact with by pure coincidence.
We had a five-player free-for-all, drafting four packs each and building 50-card decks, in an attempt to get all of the new stuff into play.
I drafted a green-heavy Golgari deck with a nifty suite of artifacts for some recursion.
Esper Guy tried very, very hard not to draft Esper, but ended up doing so anyway.
Spike drafted Jund, and stole all the stuff I let pass!
Johnny drafted Esper as well.
Tribal Guy drafted Mardu, and went hard into the Dragon tribal after basically being passed the whole thing.
Johnny dominated. He got Sword of Body and Mind onto Shadowmage Infiltrator early, stabilized with Grave Titan and Wingmate Roc, and then finished us all off with the unholy trinity of Yawgmoth's Bargain, Beacon of Unrest and Deadeye Navigator. He'd decked himself, and stayed afloat due to Bargain and the Beacon shuffling itself back in each turn. In play, he had Captain Deadeye bonded to Snapcaster Mage, which in hindsight should have been enough evil in itself to give him the game by default.
Of the new stuff from the last two posts, only Keiga, Goblin Welder and Impact Tremors didn't make it out of the box.
Tribal guy obviously ended up with a lot of the new stuff. Kolaghan and Utvara Hellkite got piffed on sight. Sunscorch Regent was an absolute house (it got stolen once, made it to at least nine counters by my count, and provided large amounts of life-gain to boot). Sidisi was resolved, but not abused, and even then was solid (imagine what happens if we let Johnny draft him... yeesh...). Sarkhan's Triumph resolved at an opponent's EoT to fetch him a gorilla (coincidentally Flameblast Dragon, which I don't think actually hit the table... if it did, it died on sight too).
I had Trading Post and was queuing up some epic recursion when it got swept away by Austere Command.
Esper Guy had splashed red, perhaps solely for Blasphemous Act, which did exactly what it advertised (swept the board for him for R).
Johnny first-picked Wurmcoil Engine, and it delivered for him. The tokens helped drive him to victory.
Lots of splashy plays, but of particular note was that Wingmate Roc was again better than advertised. Johnny kept afloat with Yawgmoth's Bargain solely by its life-gain. And could have taken the evil to completely new levels by bonding it with Deadeye Navigator and then blinking it multiple times post-attack for multiple birds. It's potentially the strongest of the white 5-drops in the cube (it's definitely ahead of Stonehewer Giant and Knight-Captain of Eos, it's going to get axed on sight less than Sunscorch Regent... is it better than Baneslayer Angel? Possibly).
A couple more small changes in advance of the next match, thanks to things dropping out of decks and/or arriving via PucaTrade:
Outpost Siege in for Chain Reaction: This was discussed above somewhere, and we've now achieved it. Chain Reaction essentially got superseded by Blasphemous Act. The Siege is basically red card draw. Should be good.
Asceticism in for Verdant Embrace: Clearly a step up in power level. Asceticism is going to be a card people are going to have to keep enchantment removal handy for. This knocks another aura out of the cube (weakening Aura Gnarlid), but, if anything, strengthens the Enchantress archetype. The Embrace saw a little bit of play, but wasn't setting the world on fire anymore.
Okay, my final four cards from the DTK update have finally arrived in the mail today, so I can make it official (I've had them loaded into CubeTutor for a couple of weeks, but we haven't been able to physically draft them in anger yet):
Dragonlord Silumgar in for Wrexial, the Risen Deep: Silumgar was a pretty obvious upgrade at the top of the Dimir curve. Wrexial took one look at him and decided it was time to exit, stage left.
Kiora, the Crashing Wave in for Simic Sky Swallower: There has been a lot of pixels wasted on how SSS gets run as a Simic reanimation target / finisher, and always disappoints (mostly because it's so vanilla, more than anything... there's nothing wrong with it per se, there are just plenty more exciting ways you could win). Given our lack of Kiora in the cube, we decided to end the argument in our own playgroup at the very least. It could easily have been Edric or Overbeing instead, though (the other two Simic cards, Spitting Image and Prophet of Kruphix are safe for years).
A few nice things from Pucatrade, ahead of our (fairly small) Origins update:
Sigarda, Host of Herons in for Sterling Grove: The headlining Selesnya beatstick comes into the cube at the expense of Sterling Grove. Given that targeted enchantment removal is at somewhat of a premium in the cube already, the Grove wasn't getting run much, and was probably seeing value solely as an enchantment tutor. But would you rather run a slower, more colour-intensive Idyllic Tutor, or Sigarda? Yah, though so.
Giant Adephage in for Liege of the Tangle: We suspect Spawnwrithe is going to get unseated from the cube in the Origins update by Managorger Hydra, but my group loves the ability all the same. So why not throw in Spawnwrithe's big brother? It's very similar to Liege of the Tangle, without putting your lands at risk (and, as it turns out, a far more popular reanimation target in the end, too).
Shaman of the Great Hunt in for Krenko, Mob Boss: Shaman was better than most things in this slot, but picking what to drop for it was murder. It was almost Fanatic of Mogis or Flametongue Kavu, but the group decided in the end that Goblin tribal wasn't quite a big enough thing yet for Krenko to truly go ballistic. He got dropped on the agreement that if Goblin tribal increases in the cube, Krenko will probably go back in (somehow, some way).
Sigiled Starfish in for Battlefield Thaumaturge: I hadn't seen the Thaumaturge played for a long time. It was in to help the Izzet spells matter archetype, but half the things that archetype wants to throw about are things you're never going to want to point at your own Thaumaturge. Scryfish is just good value at this CC, and should see a bit of play.
Syphon Mind in for Doom Blade: We are loaded with removal in black, and Syphon should have been in miles ago - it's universally acknowledged as one of the best black cards available for Multiplayer. Doom Blade was the chosen removal spell that got removed (we've kept Tragic Slip, Go for the Throat and Murder).
Once we got all that done, we had six players, so we drafted the entire cube out for a three-on-three team game.
I drafted a durdly Abzan concoction full of artifacts.
New Guy drafted Gruul and went hard into Dragon tribal.
Spike drafted Dimir Zombies.
Tribal Guy drafted Gruul tokens.
Johnny drafted BUG Control.
Esper Guy drafted.. er... Esper (I swear he tries not to every time, and ends up with it anyway)!
The teams were drawn and it was myself, New Guy and Esper Guy vs. Johnny, Spike and Tribal Guy. And hoo boy... one-sided night it was.
Esper Guy had drafted a pile of mana rocks and Tezzeret, and saw none of it in either game.
I didn't find any of my card draw in either game, and couldn't ramp into my bombs and removal fast enough (I had Kokusho and Sigarda, and didn't see either of them).
And poor New Guy got stuck holding his fat dragons in both games with no land.
And, of course, as things would fall, the three on the other side all had liftoff.
Johnny had managed to draft a very nice deck. He'd managed to score almost every card in the cube capable of countering things. Couple that with a little bit of ramp, bounce and reanimation? Winner. I knew he was one of the guys who would absolutely adoreGiant Adephage being in the cube, and I was right - not only did he draft it, he rode to victory on it.
Tribal Guy managed to get Xenagos and Sarkhan Vol working in harmony together in one of the two games. He also had Prime Time and SoFaF, and had a field day once all of that was on the board (and to be fair, the explosiveness of the other two decks afforded him the time to achieve this in).
Spike drafted all three black tutors (Diabolic, Beseech and Sidisi), along with Consuming Aberration, Sword of Light and Shadow, Beacon of Unrest and most of the zombies in those colours. Again, a very neat and effective deck.
In Game 1, Spike went Turn 4 Syphon Mind, came with an agreement with Johnny to see Giant Adephage discarded, and then cast Beacon of Unrest on it on Turn 5. As soon as we got rid of it, Johnny pointed Body Double at it and controlled us while swinging for the win.
Game 2 was a bit more backwards and forwards until Tribal Guy landed SoFaF on Prime Time and Spike landed SoLaS on Consuming Aberration. We thought we'd solved things when we got Prime Time and the Aberration's Sword off the table, only to watch Johnny sit back and kick Rite of Replication on the Aberration and then mill us for the win.
Stormbreath Dragon in for Magma Phoenix: The Phoenix has been in the cube almost since inception, and has finally been outclassed. Stormbreath finally fell into our budget with its rotation coming soon (and it's sure going to like hanging out with the other dragons).
Sweet cube. I'm thinking of building a MP cube myself, will most likely look to yours for inspiration.
Out of curiosity is Bond of Agony not in it due to the 'fun' factor.
Cheers!
Yeah, Bond of Agony is not in for the same reasons as Exsanguinate... people just got a bit sick of the black decks durdling about and controlling things until they hit the right amount of mana and ended the game on the spot. Exsanguinate is probably better and swingier, but I suspect Prid3 (who is the holder of one of the other well-established MP cubes) runs both it and Bond of Agony - his playgroup tends to be a bit Spikier, and I know he's got a soft spot for the Bond.
I like your cube. Inspired me to look at the optimal/budget/legacy MP cube threads for the last couple of years.
Big question I have. I do holiday cube with some buddies (his cube) and we usually have 4 players and simulate an 8 player draft by starting with 6 packs, picking a card then passing. Before you take your next pick everyone randomly dumps a card into a big pile in the middle, then you take your next pick. Rinse repeat. This forces tough decisions since another card you want could get picked or dumped by the time it gets around to you again. Being newish to cubing are there more optimal ways to draft with only four players?
The reason I ask is because I plan to build my own MP cube (unpowered) and I would prefer even more cards (450 seems like a prime number to me) so we can get more variation or support more archetypes? I don't know if I am going about this correctly or not and since you seem to be the most active of non edh MP, well, you are source!
I am sure I will have a bunch more questions, but I will start slowly. I think the cube is 355 cards right now and when I get it to 360 I will post what were starting with and would appreciate some feedback.
I like your cube. Inspired me to look at the optimal/budget/legacy MP cube threads for the last couple of years.
Big question I have. I do holiday cube with some buddies (his cube) and we usually have 4 players and simulate an 8 player draft by starting with 6 packs, picking a card then passing. Before you take your next pick everyone randomly dumps a card into a big pile in the middle, then you take your next pick. Rinse repeat. This forces tough decisions since another card you want could get picked or dumped by the time it gets around to you again. Being newish to cubing are there more optimal ways to draft with only four players?
The reason I ask is because I plan to build my own MP cube (unpowered) and I would prefer even more cards (450 seems like a prime number to me) so we can get more variation or support more archetypes? I don't know if I am going about this correctly or not and since you seem to be the most active of non edh MP, well, you are source!
I am sure I will have a bunch more questions, but I will start slowly. I think the cube is 355 cards right now and when I get it to 360 I will post what were starting with and would appreciate some feedback.
Thanks! Yah, drafting with four is tough - lots of ways of doing it, and I don't think I've found an optimal one yet. At 360, we've left part of the cube in the box before and drafted three or four boosters. But it curls my toes to leave part of the cube in the box. As a cube designer, I put enough thought into each of the 360 cards that it's like leaving a few of your babies in the box.
But I should probably try something similar to what you describe. There is a thread out in the main Cube Forum on "Glimpse / Burn Four" - it's a method of drafting a cube with only two people. The idea is that you pick up a booster, pick a card, and then burn four more cards that you don't want the other person to draft before handing it over. Obviously, you'd change the number of cards you burnt in a four-person draft, but it is reportedly incredible fun, and I need to give it a run with my wife on this cube (which would be amusing, given it would be a multiplayer cube forced into 1vs1 action).
I guess if you burnt two and passed the pack, that would work with four players. Would make for some interesting drafting!
And yeah, feel free to throw me more questions as you move along with your project! I usually begin the Multiplayer Power Rankings in September, so this year's isn't too far off.
Our Origins update is finalised! As per usual, the cards are trickling in, but we know all of our changes now, and everything has been traded for / purchased, so it will all physically be in the cube in fairly short order.
Managorger Hydra in for Aura Gnarlid: The number of auras in our cube has been dropping, so the Gnarlid has been getting less and less effective. Managorger is an amazing multiplayer creature, and pretty much has to be dealt with quickly - good stuff for three mana.
Evolutionary Leap in for Aspect of Mongoose: Speaking of auras... Aspect was the worst of the lot, and was being last-picked. Enchantress will still work, regardless of how many auras we lose, as we're replacing them all with global enchantments, and hoo boy... is Evolutionary Leap some sort of global enchantment! I actually have copies of Survival of the Fittest, and have resisted putting one in the cube as I suspect it would probably be too broken. Leap is probably about as fixed a version of SotF as we will see. The 1vs1 guys report that it is incredible next to Sneak Attack, which is also in this cube, so I'm waiting for someone to pull off something degenerate with it.
Hero's Downfall in for Murder: Downfall has finally become more budget, and is obviously strictly better.
Prophet of Kruphix gets upgraded to the Clash Pack Foil copy: Because it is cheap, and it is beautiful.
Ghoulcaller Gisa in for Noxious Ghoul: These two would have been ridiculous together, but the problem with Noxious has always been that it's one piece of a two-card combo (albeit a very tribal one... it was good with Lord of the Undead, Grave Betrayal, Havengul Lich etc. etc. ... but it was always the last cut from the Zombie deck, really). Gisa has value outside of Zombie tribal as a most excellent sac outlet. I expect that she'll see a fair amount of play.
Kaervek the Merciless in for Underworld Cerberus: The Cerberus did a pretty good job at sticking around in the cube, given it was placeholding. Kaervek is the true Rakdos Mutiplayer gorilla, and wanted to be in here a while ago (and now we've finally got around to it).
Savage Beating in for Incendiary Command: Still an instant or sorcery for Izzet, definitely stronger than Incendiary Command is (which was always either an expensive 2pt Earthquake or an even-more-expensive Molten Psyche).
We shuffled the cube up and handed each player four boosters, aiming for 50-card decks. This got 5/6th of the cube out into people's hands. Murphy's Law dictated that Kaervek, Gisa and Savage Beating stayed in the box (along with a few juicy cards, like Snappy, Aberration and Stoneforge Mystic). Nykthos was drafted but not decked. Weathered Wayfarer is probably turning up in my letterbox today, so it missed its calling by 24hrs for this draft.
Cubing it up with me were Spike, Johnny Combo, Tribal Guy and New Guy.
Simic was open early on, and I chased it hard, winding up with the following deck:
Four Swords! It felt about one turn too slow the whole game, though... it did some pretty spectacular things but just couldn't quite get over the hump, and always felt one mana short of some remarkable plays. It did manage to achieve one of the plays of the night, though - getting Inferno Titan underneath Mimic Vat. 12 damage each turn!
Johnny Combo drafted Naya tokens and never quite got over the hump.
New Guy drafted Boros tokens + burn, and managed to have a pseudo-Extort thing going (with both Impact Tremors and Soul Warden on the board at the same time).
Tribal Dude drafted Orzhov extortion, and managed some fairly impressive damage with Vizkopa Guildmage.
But the winner was Spike, who drafted a very, very strong Dimir deck that was approximately the following:
Our mistake was to leave this deck alone long enough for it to get set. Once it did that, it stole and/or copied whatever it wanted (via Body Double, Dragonlord Silumgar, Havengul Lich and Coffin Queen). Tribal Dude had his Orzhov deck raided in particular, losing Bone Shredder, Crypt Ghast and Vizkopa Guildmage to it. This deck won the first of the two games by playing Gary twice (thanks to Cyclonic Rift), and the second via Gary and Kokusho (among other things).
Good, fun night all up. Managorger Hydra (another recent add above) made a threatening appearance in Johnny's deck, and was a suitably scary three-drop.
I like your changes. We are also trying Ghoulcaller Gisa and hope it works out.
Finally you took out Goldmeadow Harrier and it is indeed a great upgrade.
Let us know how Kaervek the merciless is for you. I know a couple people in our group are interested in that card. We have breath of Malfegor in as a holder and we also use Master of Cruelties who can usually find some poor sap to pick on.
We seem to have settled on Dragons/good stuffs and mass chaos for Red, which is decent for now. We have quite a few Savage Beating effects in our cube.
I like your changes. We are also trying Ghoulcaller Gisa and hope it works out.
Finally you took out Goldmeadow Harrier and it is indeed a great upgrade.
Let us know how Kaervek the merciless is for you. I know a couple people in our group are interested in that card. We have breath of Malfegor in as a holder and we also use Master of Cruelties who can usually find some poor sap to pick on.
We seem to have settled on Dragons/good stuffs and mass chaos for Red, which is decent for now. We have quite a few Savage Beating effects in our cube.
Cheers! Yeah, can't wait to see how Gisa and Kaervek roll - I suspect they'll be pretty strong. Goldmeadow Harrier has actually been in my cube since its inception - it was the last remaining survivor of Kithkin Tribal (which, as you can probably tell, never worked as an archetype... it was one of the first tribes we dropped)! No idea how it had managed to last as long as it did in my cube, but I decided to knock it out of the park.
Your red section seems to be heading in about the same direction mine is at the moment!
Six drafters, so we drafted four boosters each, built 40 card decks (which was jolly hard out of four boosters) and played three-on-three.
We ended up with:
Myself (Simic Prophet of Kruphix), Tribal Dude (Orzhov Extort) and Johnny Combo (Grixis spells)
vs.
Esper Guy (Orzhov), Mrs. Esper (Gruul) and Spike (Dimir Control)
The second team pwned the first in two matches. Spike comments that Dimir control is likely the strongest current archetype in the cube - he landed a deck not dissimilar to his last effort, and disrupted with Blatant Thievery, Gilded Drake and Dragonlord Silumgar.
But the star deck of the day was Mrs. Esper's absolutely rocking Gruul deck. We commented afterwards that, given the current makeup of the cube, she pretty much managed to draft the Gruul wet dream.
It was vaguely the following:
Surprisingly, we never saw the 'walkers. Not Garruk. Not Sarkhan. Not even Xenagos. It didn't matter.
It started out with Yasova doing early work in each game. Then Feldon appeared.
Then her teammate Spike cast Syphon Mind, allowing her to discard Molten Primordial.
Which Feldon then started reproducing each turn.
And then, just when things couldn't get any uglier, she pulled off the masterful move of stealing a Baneslayer Angel with a +1/+1 counter and a Wurmcoil Engine for the turn, swinging with them, and then promptly using Ulvenwald Tracker to smash their faces together post-combat for another 12 life, two Wurm tokens and no problems with them swinging in the opposite direction for the rest of the game. Ouch!
As a group, we suspect there will be very little, if any, BfZ making its way into the cube. Perhaps Quarantine Field, but not much more than that.
Instead, we'll likely add to Enchantress with Eidolon of Blossoms and Sigil of the Empty Throne. It might not completely stop Dimir, but tokens remain an OK alternative to losing your dudes to control shenanigans.
The BfZ Update is finalised, with all the cards either available or in the post already. It's seven cards wide, with only two of them from BfZ itself.
Quarantine Field in for Spirit Bonds: The Bonds actually got played in the last game, but they are somewhat of a lower power level than most cards in the cube. I suspect if Spirit Tribal was a thing, it would see a lot more play. Q-Field was requested, and should be fun to watch get used.
Zulaport Cutthroat in for Blood Scrivener: Cutthroat has a chance to be excellent. It will likely fit into Golgari (with Evolutionary Leap) or Rakdos (with Goblin Bombardment), so I don't see it helping Dimir too much. Scrivener only really did its thing once or twice, and doesn't get decked much.
Sigil of the Empty Throne in for Angelic Destiny: Continuing our move from auras to global enchantments, Sigil is the headliner this archetype probably wanted a while ago. Destiny had its moments, but Sigil is likely leagues better.
Eidolon of Blossoms in for Verduran Enchantress: Comes down a turn later, but potentially kick-starts the Enchantress Chain straight away. My playgroup actually prefers the Eidolon over Verduran (and you can swing with it in an emergency too).
Dictate of Erebos in for Conspiracy: Conspiracy had been the ultimate two-card combo waiting to happen, and no-one was game enough to try it. They'll try Dictate alright.
Swiftfoot Boots in for Fireshrieker: I had talked in the past about how Dimir was strong, and how Fireshrieker wasn't getting drafted much given the abundance of double strike. This is a move to cover both - the Boots will prevent Dimir theft on your best creature.
Gruul Charm in for Mage Slayer: One final change to give the cube an answer to the highly-prevalent creature theft at the moment. Dimir is obviously the chief offender (via Gilded Drake, Keiga, Corrupted Conscience and Blatant Thievery), but red is also capable of one-turn shenanigans (e.g. Insurrection, Zealous Conscripts, Molten Primordial). Red and green are usually the two colours that wear the effects of this theft the most. Enter Gruul Charm. You'd draft this on the back of its anti-token sweep and/or its potential free swing anyway, but gaining back all of your own creatures instantly is potentially gamebreaking ATM (imagine at EoT against Dimir, or in response to declaration of blockers following an Insurrection). Mage Slayer did nothing wrong, other than being the weakest card in Gruul. It was good, but it needed things to go right to work.
Mirror Entity in for Mentor of the Meek: One of my playgroup members summed this up as "Mentor is good... but Entity is awesome... makes all the tribal stuff better, too". Should've been in a while ago, and Mentor had to be the unfortunate victim.
So, your Cube is 'unpowered' but I thought it was strange that you included Sol Ring in it. It's arguably in the top three best cards in my Powered Cube. I copied your Cube a couple of weeks ago to try something new with my playgroup and Sol Ring was the only card I cut, so we ended up drafting 359 cards. As far as balancing is concerned, if a card is an 'auto first pick', I tend to cut it. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on the card.
There are a few other cards I thought were strange, that I subbed in with different cards. I cut all the checklands/buddylands and added ABU duals instead. I also added the Khans trilands to go with the Shards trilands. I can understand not having ABU duals because of budget concerns, but was there a reason you had only half the trilands?
I noticed the 'enchantment matters' subtheme. Is there a reason you don't just go all in and play the full boat of white 'enchantment removal'? You can play Stasis Snare, Banishing Light, Grasp of Fate, and Journey to Nowhere. I think the one mana removal can be subbed out for a couple of these. Because a lot of the creatures take a lot of resources/work to be effective, it can be a real feel bad to have it removed by a single mana spell.
We had a lot of fun with the initial build of the Cube. My playgroup is fairly spikey, we don't play Commander (though I'm obsessed with owning one of ever card, so I buy all the Commander decks as they come out), usually Power and Peasant Cubes.
So, your Cube is 'unpowered' but I thought it was strange that you included Sol Ring in it. It's arguably in the top three best cards in my Powered Cube. I copied your Cube a couple of weeks ago to try something new with my playgroup and Sol Ring was the only card I cut, so we ended up drafting 359 cards. As far as balancing is concerned, if a card is an 'auto first pick', I tend to cut it. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on the card.
There are a few other cards I thought were strange, that I subbed in with different cards. I cut all the checklands/buddylands and added ABU duals instead. I also added the Khans trilands to go with the Shards trilands. I can understand not having ABU duals because of budget concerns, but was there a reason you had only half the trilands?
I noticed the 'enchantment matters' subtheme. Is there a reason you don't just go all in and play the full boat of white 'enchantment removal'? You can play Stasis Snare, Banishing Light, Grasp of Fate, and Journey to Nowhere. I think the one mana removal can be subbed out for a couple of these. Because a lot of the creatures take a lot of resources/work to be effective, it can be a real feel bad to have it removed by a single mana spell.
We had a lot of fun with the initial build of the Cube. My playgroup is fairly spikey, we don't play Commander (though I'm obsessed with owning one of ever card, so I buy all the Commander decks as they come out), usually Power and Peasant Cubes.
That is incredibly awesome on so many levels - glad you guys had fun!
Sol Ring is purely down to my meta. I used to have a bit more fast mana in here in earlier iterations of the cube, and it didn't get picked - my meta just doesn't seem to value it as highly, for some reason (and yes, in other news, people are stupid).
I am down to Sol Ring, Mana Vault and Mox Diamond as the fast mana, and TBH they're more broken when Tezzeret the Seeker grabs them and starts untapping them, than they are in early turns. Don't ask me why. I think my bunch might just be too gentelmanly to do horrible things too early! That said, I know I will usually first-pick Mana Vault or Sol Ring - about the only thing I rate ahead of them in this cube, given the way my meta works, are the Swords and Wurmcoil Engine. For us, most of the Swords are auto-first-picks ATM, as well as perhaps Primeval Titan and Deadeye Navigator (although Deadeye probably depends on which pack you get him in).
Yeah, ABU Duals are only missing due to price - one day, one day...
I've actually got two of the cheap ones already, so if I can ramp up to Underground Sea and Tundra on PucaTrade, it's probably on.
The Khans trilands are literally only missing due to the size of the cube's land section. My playgroup would be all over them if I put them in (they adore the Shards copies, and have asked me not to drop them). But given the land section is only 40 wide, and I already have ten shocks, ten fetches, ten checklands, I pretty much have to drop the utility stuff to get them in (which would mean goodbye to Rogue's Passage, for one, and that thing has brought me a win or two).
I hadn't considered dropping Swords and Path to Exile for enchantment variants until you mentioned it, TBH, but it does make sense. Grasp of Fate is definitely coming in as soon as I get my hands on it, and the plan was to swap Quarantine Field back out for it, but that's a good argument - my meta loves Enchantress, so I have a feeling they'd actually be up for that (especially given Banishing Light is in the same C15 deck as Grasp of Fate).
Oh, and for yourself and anyone else reading along who hasn't seen my post in the "Only Happens in Cube Draft" thread out in the top forum, my resident Spike unlocked the following achievement on Wednesday night. There was laughter, there were tears...
My Resident Spike: Is that Ral Zarek about to ultimate?
One of my other mates: Er... yeeeahhh...
Spike: I steal it with Zealous Conscripts and ultimate it.
Mate:
Spike: Let's see... roll five dice, evens is an extra turn... oh look, three extra turns!
Mate:
Spike: Okay, begin my first extra turn... Cyclonic Rift overloaded?
ENTIRE TABLE:
Yeah, he won that game pretty easily from there...
First OGW changes have been made (along with a couple of nice booster pulls):
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim in for Treasury Thrull: Treasury has been in basically since the first week of Gatecrash, and it's finally been superseded. It's survived because of its extortion and recursion, but it remains an expensive cast and doesn't see a lot of maindecking. Ayli wants to play with Vizkopa Guildmage and...
Karlov of the Ghost Council in for Mortify: Orzhov is now so tight that I had to drop a removal spell to get Karlov in, but he should form an unholy troika with Ayli and Vizkopa - they're all two-drops and they all riff gorgeously off each other. The other two Orzhov cards remaining are Utter End and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad - a really good, tight mix for this guild. You'll see below that I got a match win with it before Ayli and Karlov even came in, so my hope is that this might break up the usual Esper / Dimir decks that we see, and make people attempt different archetypes with some of the same cards.
Jori En, Ruin Diver in for Nivix Guildmage: This slot has had some dogs in the past, and Nivix Guildmage was very much the best of a bad bunch. Jori En has potential - let's see if it delivers. One thing's for sure... we're trying to get Mizzix in here too, and that's going to be an interesting cut for this guild when it happens.
Oath of Nissa in for Mirri's Guile: Mirri's Guile has been a great card, but it just about always plays like a weak green Brainstorm, and then has little effect after the first turn out. The Oath has more of an initial impact, and then lets you dream of playing Superfriends afterwards. I'm looking forward to seeing this one in action.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion in for Myr Battlesphere: Yes, we really are doing the Wastes Dance! As already mentioned out on CubeTutor, this was a tough, tough cut. Myrball is a fun, fun card - it plays nicely with Trading Post, Goblin Welder... but if we were going to run Wastes, we really needed a headlining reason to do so, and our other colourless curve-toppers are pretty untouchable for the most part. It's going to be fun watching the first person attempt the Kozilek gamble.
Endbringer in for Argentum Armor: The Armor was one of my dogs - it's too expensive in almost every facet for what it does, and can be pretty much solely treated as one half of a two-card combo with Stoneforge Mystic or Stonehewer Giant. It's a long time since I've seen it hard-cast. Endbringer is another card that pushes Wastes play, and comes into its own in Multiplayer with all that untapping. I suspect it may well end up on par with a colourless Mercurial Chemister.
Mirrorpool in for Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion: A clear power jump, and a card that I look forward to recurring with Sun Titan at the very least. Sunhome is a fun card, but expensive to activate, and hasn't been decked for a while.
Dread Defiler in for Avatar of Woe: We've been running Avatar and Royal Assassin together in the cube for a while, and black is loaded with removal. So let's drop the Avatar for a curve-topper that encourages Wastes play, and will have the unintentional side-effect of giving the Consuming Aberration player across the table some pause for thought.
Dimensional Infiltrator in for Etherium Sculptor: Sculptor hasn't seen much play lately, and is weakened by artifacts dropping out of the cube to let Devoid things in. Infiltrator has some potential as a cheap little piece of annoyment for the Dimir mill decks.
Narset Transcendent in for Mirrorweave: When one pulls foil Narset, one smashes it into one's cube. My playgroup was set on dropping Mirrorweave, which is a move I'm not entirely sold on yet (but I have a mancrush on the card, so I may be wrong).
See the Unwritten in for Epic Proportions: Another piece of foil pimpage that needed to come in, this one had a much easier target to drop out of the cube. Epic Proportions was producing scalps in 2011. But not nowadays.
We'll be running a number of Wastes in the basic land section to support this, obviously, and there are probably a few more OGW cards to make their way in (most likely Deceiver of Form at the very least).
Before most of the above happened, we managed a four-player draft, followed by a 2HG game. Narset and See the Unwritten were in the cube, but stayed in the box.
I lucked into the following Orzhov deck. Imagine what this puppy would've been like with access to Ayli and Karlov... welcome to the rise of the new Orzhov Lifegain archetype, I suspect...
This deck promptly drew me the entire fat end of the deck first and my teammate and I promptly spent the first six turns or so getting blown off the table. Thank goodness we started at 40 life!
We stabilized at about 18 and I was able to start dropping the guys that would stop the swinging from our opponents - Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine. From there, two awesome plays from this deck won the game.
Firstly, Weathered Wayfarer fetched Rogue's Passage. This helped Wurmcoil Engine to start getting through for some facetime, which was especially good given it was wearing SoLaS by this stage. That started handing us 16 point life swings each turn, which got us back into the game.
The second move was Liliana Vess tutoring into Vizkopa Guildmage. The Guildmage dropped, and promptly turned our 8 damage from Wurmcoil each turn into a game-breaking 30 (we were gaining 11 a turn thanks to SoLaS, and that then got dealt back to each team member on the other side). The game ended in two turns once the Guildmage got active.
What made this deck fun was the fact that just about every creature it rocked was capable of gaining life. Wurmcoil, Vizkopa Guildmage, Wingmate Roc, Baneslayer Angel, Kokusho, the Evening Star... they all got out into play, and they all gained us life. I'm enjoying the thought of future iterations of this archetype cramming Ayli and Karlov in... should be one heck of a deck if it all pieces together.
This is the end of what is traditionally a very busy period for the cube - January and February are usually full of Christmas and Birthday-related changes, along with the usual set updates. We should be pretty settled until the next set update in May now.
This update was seven cards wide - it brings in three FRF cards, one KTK card that we'd been waiting on, a BotG card that fell into our budget... and two complete and utter bombs. Ready?
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Had a couple of upgrades due to cards falling out of decks. These didn't get met with too much resistance, as you could imagine:
We're hopefully suiting up for a draft of the new stuff tomorrow night. If we do, I'll stick a match report up.
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You can find them in the thread's second post. Enjoy!
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We had a cube meet last night, and, given I have some of the cards available already, rolled some of them in in advance of the main update:
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I should add that we had an absolutely smashing cube night following on from the last update, but I simply didn't have enough time to post a match report. Of the four cards we swapped in, only one hit play - that was Flameblast Dragon, which got a swing in and blew something away before it got it in the neck. So it did about what we expected it to. Win.
We had two drafts of the cube - one with five for a free-for-all, and again with six for a 3-on-3 match. We had a new guy come along who hadn't slung cards in about a decade, and he had a blast.
There are rules about the new guy winning, and he did win the free-for-all - he drafted a superbly-curved Azorius deck that dealt early damage with Knight of Meadowgrain and Daxos of Meletis before settling into its usual control method and hanging around for the game. I had a cracking Simic deck that showed Oracle of Mul Daya to be the house it is for the first time in the cube - it ramped the hell out of my deck, and I plonked Memnarch down and took control of things. Of course, I'd built the deck around Deadeye Navigator, and the bottom two cards of my library turned out to be Deadeye and Eternal Witness (the one thing that could've recurred everything all over again). I'd ramped so hard that I left myself with those two cards in my library by the time I got around to our new guy, thinking I could control things with Memnarch for two turns and do the job... only to miscalculate and let Daxos under my guard and halve my turn count. Oh dear.
The three-on-three game saw five of the six players draft red! Myself and of my mates sitting next to me both somehow managed to draft Mardu successfully at the same time - he got the removal and the fat end, while I got the Knights and the sticks. Mrs. Bl00m had gone even harder at red and ramped up to the swinging Flameblast Dragon followed by something hot for the win (RSZ, from memory... it's been a couple of weeks now).
Considering the fact we've had two weddings in our playgroup in the last month, and I've been on holiday in the middle, cube games have been a bit thin on the ground. We'll be rectifying that in the coming weeks!
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We had a five-player free-for-all, drafting four packs each and building 50-card decks, in an attempt to get all of the new stuff into play.
I drafted a green-heavy Golgari deck with a nifty suite of artifacts for some recursion.
Esper Guy tried very, very hard not to draft Esper, but ended up doing so anyway.
Spike drafted Jund, and stole all the stuff I let pass!
Johnny drafted Esper as well.
Tribal Guy drafted Mardu, and went hard into the Dragon tribal after basically being passed the whole thing.
Johnny dominated. He got Sword of Body and Mind onto Shadowmage Infiltrator early, stabilized with Grave Titan and Wingmate Roc, and then finished us all off with the unholy trinity of Yawgmoth's Bargain, Beacon of Unrest and Deadeye Navigator. He'd decked himself, and stayed afloat due to Bargain and the Beacon shuffling itself back in each turn. In play, he had Captain Deadeye bonded to Snapcaster Mage, which in hindsight should have been enough evil in itself to give him the game by default.
Of the new stuff from the last two posts, only Keiga, Goblin Welder and Impact Tremors didn't make it out of the box.
Tribal guy obviously ended up with a lot of the new stuff. Kolaghan and Utvara Hellkite got piffed on sight. Sunscorch Regent was an absolute house (it got stolen once, made it to at least nine counters by my count, and provided large amounts of life-gain to boot). Sidisi was resolved, but not abused, and even then was solid (imagine what happens if we let Johnny draft him... yeesh...). Sarkhan's Triumph resolved at an opponent's EoT to fetch him a gorilla (coincidentally Flameblast Dragon, which I don't think actually hit the table... if it did, it died on sight too).
I had Trading Post and was queuing up some epic recursion when it got swept away by Austere Command.
Esper Guy had splashed red, perhaps solely for Blasphemous Act, which did exactly what it advertised (swept the board for him for R).
Johnny first-picked Wurmcoil Engine, and it delivered for him. The tokens helped drive him to victory.
Lots of splashy plays, but of particular note was that Wingmate Roc was again better than advertised. Johnny kept afloat with Yawgmoth's Bargain solely by its life-gain. And could have taken the evil to completely new levels by bonding it with Deadeye Navigator and then blinking it multiple times post-attack for multiple birds. It's potentially the strongest of the white 5-drops in the cube (it's definitely ahead of Stonehewer Giant and Knight-Captain of Eos, it's going to get axed on sight less than Sunscorch Regent... is it better than Baneslayer Angel? Possibly).
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Once we got all that done, we had six players, so we drafted the entire cube out for a three-on-three team game.
I drafted a durdly Abzan concoction full of artifacts.
New Guy drafted Gruul and went hard into Dragon tribal.
Spike drafted Dimir Zombies.
Tribal Guy drafted Gruul tokens.
Johnny drafted BUG Control.
Esper Guy drafted.. er... Esper (I swear he tries not to every time, and ends up with it anyway)!
The teams were drawn and it was myself, New Guy and Esper Guy vs. Johnny, Spike and Tribal Guy. And hoo boy... one-sided night it was.
Esper Guy had drafted a pile of mana rocks and Tezzeret, and saw none of it in either game.
I didn't find any of my card draw in either game, and couldn't ramp into my bombs and removal fast enough (I had Kokusho and Sigarda, and didn't see either of them).
And poor New Guy got stuck holding his fat dragons in both games with no land.
And, of course, as things would fall, the three on the other side all had liftoff.
Johnny had managed to draft a very nice deck. He'd managed to score almost every card in the cube capable of countering things. Couple that with a little bit of ramp, bounce and reanimation? Winner. I knew he was one of the guys who would absolutely adore Giant Adephage being in the cube, and I was right - not only did he draft it, he rode to victory on it.
Tribal Guy managed to get Xenagos and Sarkhan Vol working in harmony together in one of the two games. He also had Prime Time and SoFaF, and had a field day once all of that was on the board (and to be fair, the explosiveness of the other two decks afforded him the time to achieve this in).
Spike drafted all three black tutors (Diabolic, Beseech and Sidisi), along with Consuming Aberration, Sword of Light and Shadow, Beacon of Unrest and most of the zombies in those colours. Again, a very neat and effective deck.
In Game 1, Spike went Turn 4 Syphon Mind, came with an agreement with Johnny to see Giant Adephage discarded, and then cast Beacon of Unrest on it on Turn 5. As soon as we got rid of it, Johnny pointed Body Double at it and controlled us while swinging for the win.
Game 2 was a bit more backwards and forwards until Tribal Guy landed SoFaF on Prime Time and Spike landed SoLaS on Consuming Aberration. We thought we'd solved things when we got Prime Time and the Aberration's Sword off the table, only to watch Johnny sit back and kick Rite of Replication on the Aberration and then mill us for the win.
Of the new stuff, we saw Syphon Mind, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Giant Adephage and Dragonlord Silumgar in action. All of them did what they advertised, and Giant Adephage is all that and a bag of chips - it's very good, and probably deadlier when left alone than Liege of the Tangle was. Not sure what it is about it that makes it look splashier than the Liege, but it's definitely more loved.
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Out of curiosity is Bond of Agony not in it due to the 'fun' factor.
Cheers!
Yeah, Bond of Agony is not in for the same reasons as Exsanguinate... people just got a bit sick of the black decks durdling about and controlling things until they hit the right amount of mana and ended the game on the spot. Exsanguinate is probably better and swingier, but I suspect Prid3 (who is the holder of one of the other well-established MP cubes) runs both it and Bond of Agony - his playgroup tends to be a bit Spikier, and I know he's got a soft spot for the Bond.
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Big question I have. I do holiday cube with some buddies (his cube) and we usually have 4 players and simulate an 8 player draft by starting with 6 packs, picking a card then passing. Before you take your next pick everyone randomly dumps a card into a big pile in the middle, then you take your next pick. Rinse repeat. This forces tough decisions since another card you want could get picked or dumped by the time it gets around to you again. Being newish to cubing are there more optimal ways to draft with only four players?
The reason I ask is because I plan to build my own MP cube (unpowered) and I would prefer even more cards (450 seems like a prime number to me) so we can get more variation or support more archetypes? I don't know if I am going about this correctly or not and since you seem to be the most active of non edh MP, well, you are source!
I am sure I will have a bunch more questions, but I will start slowly. I think the cube is 355 cards right now and when I get it to 360 I will post what were starting with and would appreciate some feedback.
Thanks! Yah, drafting with four is tough - lots of ways of doing it, and I don't think I've found an optimal one yet. At 360, we've left part of the cube in the box before and drafted three or four boosters. But it curls my toes to leave part of the cube in the box. As a cube designer, I put enough thought into each of the 360 cards that it's like leaving a few of your babies in the box.
But I should probably try something similar to what you describe. There is a thread out in the main Cube Forum on "Glimpse / Burn Four" - it's a method of drafting a cube with only two people. The idea is that you pick up a booster, pick a card, and then burn four more cards that you don't want the other person to draft before handing it over. Obviously, you'd change the number of cards you burnt in a four-person draft, but it is reportedly incredible fun, and I need to give it a run with my wife on this cube (which would be amusing, given it would be a multiplayer cube forced into 1vs1 action).
I guess if you burnt two and passed the pack, that would work with four players. Would make for some interesting drafting!
And yeah, feel free to throw me more questions as you move along with your project! I usually begin the Multiplayer Power Rankings in September, so this year's isn't too far off.
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We shuffled the cube up and handed each player four boosters, aiming for 50-card decks. This got 5/6th of the cube out into people's hands. Murphy's Law dictated that Kaervek, Gisa and Savage Beating stayed in the box (along with a few juicy cards, like Snappy, Aberration and Stoneforge Mystic). Nykthos was drafted but not decked. Weathered Wayfarer is probably turning up in my letterbox today, so it missed its calling by 24hrs for this draft.
Cubing it up with me were Spike, Johnny Combo, Tribal Guy and New Guy.
Simic was open early on, and I chased it hard, winding up with the following deck:
1 Mox Diamong
1 Mana Vault
1 Rapid Hybridization
1 Arcane Denial
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Sigiled Starfish
1 Bow of Nylea
1 Daring Apprentice
1 Ertai, Wizard Adept
1 Fabricate
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Mimic Vat
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Pattern of Rebirth
1 Tradewind Rider
1 Acidic Slime
1 Desertion
1 Overbeing of Myth
1 Prophet of Kruphix
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Primeval Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Windswept Heath
8 Forest
8 Island
Four Swords! It felt about one turn too slow the whole game, though... it did some pretty spectacular things but just couldn't quite get over the hump, and always felt one mana short of some remarkable plays. It did manage to achieve one of the plays of the night, though - getting Inferno Titan underneath Mimic Vat. 12 damage each turn!
Johnny Combo drafted Naya tokens and never quite got over the hump.
New Guy drafted Boros tokens + burn, and managed to have a pseudo-Extort thing going (with both Impact Tremors and Soul Warden on the board at the same time).
Tribal Dude drafted Orzhov extortion, and managed some fairly impressive damage with Vizkopa Guildmage.
But the winner was Spike, who drafted a very, very strong Dimir deck that was approximately the following:
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Gilded Drake
1 Coffin Queen
1 Haunted Crossroads
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Jace Beleren
1 Rhystic Study
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Mirrorweave
1 Rite of Replication
1 Syphon Mind
1 Beacon of Unrest
1 Body Double
1 Corrupted Conscience
1 Extract from Darkness
1 Force of Will
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Havengul Lich
1 Liliana Vess
1 Mulldrifter
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Dragonlord Silumgar
1 Duplicant
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Pontiff of Blight
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Watery Grave
9 Island
9 Swamp
Our mistake was to leave this deck alone long enough for it to get set. Once it did that, it stole and/or copied whatever it wanted (via Body Double, Dragonlord Silumgar, Havengul Lich and Coffin Queen). Tribal Dude had his Orzhov deck raided in particular, losing Bone Shredder, Crypt Ghast and Vizkopa Guildmage to it. This deck won the first of the two games by playing Gary twice (thanks to Cyclonic Rift), and the second via Gary and Kokusho (among other things).
Good, fun night all up. Managorger Hydra (another recent add above) made a threatening appearance in Johnny's deck, and was a suitably scary three-drop.
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Finally you took out Goldmeadow Harrier and it is indeed a great upgrade.
Let us know how Kaervek the merciless is for you. I know a couple people in our group are interested in that card. We have breath of Malfegor in as a holder and we also use Master of Cruelties who can usually find some poor sap to pick on.
We seem to have settled on Dragons/good stuffs and mass chaos for Red, which is decent for now. We have quite a few Savage Beating effects in our cube.
Cheers! Yeah, can't wait to see how Gisa and Kaervek roll - I suspect they'll be pretty strong.
Goldmeadow Harrier has actually been in my cube since its inception - it was the last remaining survivor of Kithkin Tribal (which, as you can probably tell, never worked as an archetype... it was one of the first tribes we dropped)! No idea how it had managed to last as long as it did in my cube, but I decided to knock it out of the park.
Your red section seems to be heading in about the same direction mine is at the moment!
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Six drafters, so we drafted four boosters each, built 40 card decks (which was jolly hard out of four boosters) and played three-on-three.
We ended up with:
Myself (Simic Prophet of Kruphix), Tribal Dude (Orzhov Extort) and Johnny Combo (Grixis spells)
vs.
Esper Guy (Orzhov), Mrs. Esper (Gruul) and Spike (Dimir Control)
The second team pwned the first in two matches. Spike comments that Dimir control is likely the strongest current archetype in the cube - he landed a deck not dissimilar to his last effort, and disrupted with Blatant Thievery, Gilded Drake and Dragonlord Silumgar.
But the star deck of the day was Mrs. Esper's absolutely rocking Gruul deck. We commented afterwards that, given the current makeup of the cube, she pretty much managed to draft the Gruul wet dream.
It was vaguely the following:
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Feldon of the Third Path
1 Spawnwrithe
1 Yasova Dragonclaw
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Thunderbreak Regent
1 Scourge of Geier Reach
1 Dragonlair Spider
1 Inferno Titan
1 Primeval Titan
1 Molten Primordial
1 Terastodon
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Expedition Map
1 Clan Defiance
1 Lignify
1 Beast Within
1 Harrow
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Sarkhan Vol
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Blashpemous Act
1 Stomping Ground
8 Forest
8 Mountain
Surprisingly, we never saw the 'walkers. Not Garruk. Not Sarkhan. Not even Xenagos. It didn't matter.
It started out with Yasova doing early work in each game. Then Feldon appeared.
Then her teammate Spike cast Syphon Mind, allowing her to discard Molten Primordial.
Which Feldon then started reproducing each turn.
And then, just when things couldn't get any uglier, she pulled off the masterful move of stealing a Baneslayer Angel with a +1/+1 counter and a Wurmcoil Engine for the turn, swinging with them, and then promptly using Ulvenwald Tracker to smash their faces together post-combat for another 12 life, two Wurm tokens and no problems with them swinging in the opposite direction for the rest of the game. Ouch!
As a group, we suspect there will be very little, if any, BfZ making its way into the cube. Perhaps Quarantine Field, but not much more than that.
Instead, we'll likely add to Enchantress with Eidolon of Blossoms and Sigil of the Empty Throne. It might not completely stop Dimir, but tokens remain an OK alternative to losing your dudes to control shenanigans.
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There are a few other cards I thought were strange, that I subbed in with different cards. I cut all the checklands/buddylands and added ABU duals instead. I also added the Khans trilands to go with the Shards trilands. I can understand not having ABU duals because of budget concerns, but was there a reason you had only half the trilands?
I noticed the 'enchantment matters' subtheme. Is there a reason you don't just go all in and play the full boat of white 'enchantment removal'? You can play Stasis Snare, Banishing Light, Grasp of Fate, and Journey to Nowhere. I think the one mana removal can be subbed out for a couple of these. Because a lot of the creatures take a lot of resources/work to be effective, it can be a real feel bad to have it removed by a single mana spell.
We had a lot of fun with the initial build of the Cube. My playgroup is fairly spikey, we don't play Commander (though I'm obsessed with owning one of ever card, so I buy all the Commander decks as they come out), usually Power and Peasant Cubes.
That is incredibly awesome on so many levels - glad you guys had fun!
Sol Ring is purely down to my meta. I used to have a bit more fast mana in here in earlier iterations of the cube, and it didn't get picked - my meta just doesn't seem to value it as highly, for some reason (and yes, in other news, people are stupid).
I am down to Sol Ring, Mana Vault and Mox Diamond as the fast mana, and TBH they're more broken when Tezzeret the Seeker grabs them and starts untapping them, than they are in early turns. Don't ask me why. I think my bunch might just be too gentelmanly to do horrible things too early! That said, I know I will usually first-pick Mana Vault or Sol Ring - about the only thing I rate ahead of them in this cube, given the way my meta works, are the Swords and Wurmcoil Engine. For us, most of the Swords are auto-first-picks ATM, as well as perhaps Primeval Titan and Deadeye Navigator (although Deadeye probably depends on which pack you get him in).
Yeah, ABU Duals are only missing due to price - one day, one day...
I've actually got two of the cheap ones already, so if I can ramp up to Underground Sea and Tundra on PucaTrade, it's probably on.
The Khans trilands are literally only missing due to the size of the cube's land section. My playgroup would be all over them if I put them in (they adore the Shards copies, and have asked me not to drop them). But given the land section is only 40 wide, and I already have ten shocks, ten fetches, ten checklands, I pretty much have to drop the utility stuff to get them in (which would mean goodbye to Rogue's Passage, for one, and that thing has brought me a win or two).
I hadn't considered dropping Swords and Path to Exile for enchantment variants until you mentioned it, TBH, but it does make sense. Grasp of Fate is definitely coming in as soon as I get my hands on it, and the plan was to swap Quarantine Field back out for it, but that's a good argument - my meta loves Enchantress, so I have a feeling they'd actually be up for that (especially given Banishing Light is in the same C15 deck as Grasp of Fate).
Oh, and for yourself and anyone else reading along who hasn't seen my post in the "Only Happens in Cube Draft" thread out in the top forum, my resident Spike unlocked the following achievement on Wednesday night. There was laughter, there were tears...
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We'll be running a number of Wastes in the basic land section to support this, obviously, and there are probably a few more OGW cards to make their way in (most likely Deceiver of Form at the very least).
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I lucked into the following Orzhov deck. Imagine what this puppy would've been like with access to Ayli and Karlov... welcome to the rise of the new Orzhov Lifegain archetype, I suspect...
1 Thrull Parasite
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Vizkopa Guildmage
1 Bone Shredder
1 Intrepid Hero
1 Crypt Ghast
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Ghoulcaller Gisa
1 Sunscorch Regent
1 Wingmate Roc
1 Grave Titan
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sol Ring
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Go for the Throat
1 Mimic Vat
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Dictate of Erebos
1 Liliana Vess
1 Miraculous Recovery
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Marsh Flats
1 Rogue's Passage
6 Plains
6 Swamp
This deck promptly drew me the entire fat end of the deck first and my teammate and I promptly spent the first six turns or so getting blown off the table. Thank goodness we started at 40 life!
We stabilized at about 18 and I was able to start dropping the guys that would stop the swinging from our opponents - Grave Titan and Wurmcoil Engine. From there, two awesome plays from this deck won the game.
Firstly, Weathered Wayfarer fetched Rogue's Passage. This helped Wurmcoil Engine to start getting through for some facetime, which was especially good given it was wearing SoLaS by this stage. That started handing us 16 point life swings each turn, which got us back into the game.
The second move was Liliana Vess tutoring into Vizkopa Guildmage. The Guildmage dropped, and promptly turned our 8 damage from Wurmcoil each turn into a game-breaking 30 (we were gaining 11 a turn thanks to SoLaS, and that then got dealt back to each team member on the other side). The game ended in two turns once the Guildmage got active.
What made this deck fun was the fact that just about every creature it rocked was capable of gaining life. Wurmcoil, Vizkopa Guildmage, Wingmate Roc, Baneslayer Angel, Kokusho, the Evening Star... they all got out into play, and they all gained us life. I'm enjoying the thought of future iterations of this archetype cramming Ayli and Karlov in... should be one heck of a deck if it all pieces together.
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