The decks were GW ramp, BW aggro, UWg flyers, and me on 4C (Jeskai Black) control. We did 5 packs of 12, burning the last four from each, so working with 40 card pools... I wound up drafting 23 usable spells and 10 dual/tri-lands
The only time I got to cast Mirror Match was after it got revealed to Dakra Mystic, so no crazy ambush -- my GW opponent just attacked with a Pelakka Wurm with Exalted trigger, so I had to use it for one token, then double-block with that and a Omenspeaker to kill the real Wurm. My opponent wisely put all the damage on the 1/3, so I didn't even get a draw trigger, but still a sweet spell.
I actually wound up winning that game due to decking my opponent, somehow -- my 4C deck had a lot of value, but not much raw card draw, and he used Harmonize plus stuff like Enlisted Wurm and Civic Wayfinder to work through the deck at a pretty good pace (and my Mystic really accelerated the effect in the last few turns). The following game, amusingly, I won with seven points of burn (Prophetic Bolt and Arc Lightning) after dwindling down his life total with Spirit and Mulldrifter beats.
And somewhere in one of those two games, I had to use Dinrova Horror to bounce my own Skinrender (then discard a land) to shrink Enlisted Wurm down to a manageable size for my blockers. I don't even know where to begin counting that as an "X-for-X" exchange of cards!
Though none of the new cards showed up in our quick little 4-man draft earlier this week, which wound up as: UR tempo, UW control, G(B) ramp, and RB aggro (me). Only got two rounds in; I drew poorly against UW but still nearly won a game in which my lethal Burst Lightning was countered, then I absolutely destroyed the ramp deck when he didn't cast a spell before Cultivate on T3 in G1 and could do not much more in G2.
Reflector Mage is certainly cool, but I like having a more aggressive creature in Lyev Skyknight for the same role. Shoulder to Shoulder has been my favorite common from booster drafts, but I'm not totally sold on it in the Cube context.
I like deck photos! 4-man yesterday, doing five packs of twelve but only drafting the first eight.
Thoughts: super-grindy Dimir deck which beat me in like an 80-minute match thanks to Diabolic Servitude. No reason to play 14-3 lands, but it had some really sweet Pyschatog-Victimize shenanigans going on.
Thoughts: Splashed a 7-drop in a Monastery Swiftspear deck for "funsies" but still went 1-1. I'm also not sure why so many red aggressive players in my cube are drawn to play red control cards like Breath of Darigaaz, but maybe there's some logic in having a card that can catch you up when way behind even if it'll be uncastable in some board states (usually ones that you're winning).
Mardu control... (me). Very fun archetype. Sentinel was insane, Bane not so much, but it was still able to trade for two (useless) lands, one relevant creature, and one irrelevant one at its "worst" case. Fleshbag Marauder was probably enough of a nonbo with my aura-based removal that it should've been a fairly iffy sideboard card. Faithless Looting also was great... I think it discarded like six lands and two finishers which I was able to play early-ish off Unburial Rites.
UW, but not quite enough oomph to finish in the skies after getting shields up with one both Propaganda effects. In one of my games against him, I just paid 4 and happily bashed away with my Sentinel five times 'til he was dead.
Ambusher has surprised, bigtime. It's been like... ribbons of night. A bit narrower, but draws 3 or 4 cards instead. Also the first time I saw it played it blocked a roar of the wurm token of mine. Gain 6 draw 6 for 5 mana is pretty good.
UB control-reanimator (me). The discard-Eldrazi-Dance of the Dead package never actually worked together, but looting kept my card quality high, the reanimate stuff bought back 187 creatures and my opponents' threats, and the stupid Eldrazi were just hard-cast as wincons.
Naya Stuff. Every time I looked over at this deck in action (or played against it), the pilot was cascading into awful, awful hits like Vines of Vastwood or Harm's Way. Part of that is probably deckbuilding mistake of having four such cards to hit... but also it's just bad luck, since BBE has 11/15 good hits, and Enlisted Wurm 17/21.
Awesome Orzhov deck won at 2-0. The mana is a little iffy with lots of BB alongside Spectral Procession, but once it had the right lands in play the cards were super powerful. Maw of the Obzedat did insane against me, winning a couple of games out of basically nowhere.
Red Menace, again splashing black, at 1-1. Same pilot as the last mono-splash-black deck from the previous post, not quite the same result since it was lacking both Shrine and Wargear.
Bant Stuff (me) also at 1-1. Probably woulda been 2-0 if not for the damn Maw. One of the best Opportunity decks I've seen from my cube in a long time. P1P1'd the Sledge, which is far from at its best here with a fairly low creature count, but still a great little card.
RG Stuff at 0-2. I think at some point there was a Monastery Swiftspear in the deck, I kid you not. The first ~18 spells of the deck actually aren't that bad, and has good finishers at 6-8 mana, but it has too many clunky 4's and is short on both ramp and early interactive stuff (a la Leafcrown Dryad, things to just trade off in combat on T3).
Worse-than-usual deck photo of my Grixis concoction that 3-0'd The least viewable cards behind Clone are Whirler Rogue and Talrand's Invocation (which was my P1P1).
Bonus crappy photo of my truly horrendous powered cube deck that also 3-0'd at the last FNM. Classic Tooth-and-Oppo-Twin archetype.
Did some over-the-shoulder teaching for a new Cube drafter who had only played since BFZ. Of course he winds up playing against an active Mother of Runes plus Temur Sabertooth plus Gideon's Lawkeeper.
That same draft (another 4-person one) I P1P1'd Reanimate and forced, well, Reanimator... wound up with a pretty sweet one, nice mix of all the necessary pieces. Photo coming later.
I P1P1'd Acidic Slime, so there wasn't a robust sideboard. Wisp doesn't have anything crazy to do here, but I do love having a chance to reset my enchantment-based removal when a better target comes down late-game. I think the 24th card was a Nekrataal (and worsening my manabase), forget what other RW options were around.
Is timely as back breaking for low curve aggressive decks as it looks?
It's close, but only really feels that way when the Timely dudes get to tangle with (and kill) multiple no-evasion X/1s. The average case is good-to-great, not "back breaking".
The decks were GW ramp, BW aggro, UWg flyers, and me on 4C (Jeskai Black) control. We did 5 packs of 12, burning the last four from each, so working with 40 card pools... I wound up drafting 23 usable spells and 10 dual/tri-lands
1 Dakra Mystic
1 Enclave Cryptologist
2 Omenspeaker
2 Baleful Strix
3 Lingering Souls
3 Sea Gate Oracle
4 Skinrender
4 Murderous Redcap
5 Mulldrifter
6 Dinrova Horror
(12 Spells)
1 Firebolt
2 Ultimate Price
2 Magma Jet
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Mind Stone
3 Arc Lightning
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Diabolic Servitude
5 Mind Control
5 Prophetic Bolt
5 Ribbons of Night
6 Mirror Match
4 Islands
3 Swamps
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Temple of Triumph
1 Temple of Decent
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Blood Crypt
1 Watery Grave
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Caves of Koilos
The only time I got to cast Mirror Match was after it got revealed to Dakra Mystic, so no crazy ambush -- my GW opponent just attacked with a Pelakka Wurm with Exalted trigger, so I had to use it for one token, then double-block with that and a Omenspeaker to kill the real Wurm. My opponent wisely put all the damage on the 1/3, so I didn't even get a draw trigger, but still a sweet spell.
I actually wound up winning that game due to decking my opponent, somehow -- my 4C deck had a lot of value, but not much raw card draw, and he used Harmonize plus stuff like Enlisted Wurm and Civic Wayfinder to work through the deck at a pretty good pace (and my Mystic really accelerated the effect in the last few turns). The following game, amusingly, I won with seven points of burn (Prophetic Bolt and Arc Lightning) after dwindling down his life total with Spirit and Mulldrifter beats.
And somewhere in one of those two games, I had to use Dinrova Horror to bounce my own Skinrender (then discard a land) to shrink Enlisted Wurm down to a manageable size for my blockers. I don't even know where to begin counting that as an "X-for-X" exchange of cards!
Here's my deck:
1 Enclave Cryptologist
2 Thought Courier
2 Perilous Myr
3 Lingering Souls
3 Jhessian Thief
5 Mulldrifter
6 Jetting Glasskite
7 Bane of Bala Ged
Spells (15)
0 Everflowing Chalice
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Reanimate
2 Sphere of the Suns
2 Simic Signet
2 Into the Roil
2 Counterspell
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Read the Bones
3 Compulsive Research
4 Fact or Fiction
5 Ribbons of Night
5 Unburial Rites
10 Dead Drop
6 Island
5 Swamp
3 Plains
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Drowned Catacomb
Won two tough games against my rampy-graveyardy opponent, including somehow grinding out the combo of Vampiric Rites, Phyrexian Reclamation, Nest Invader and Rakshasa Gravecaller. Turns out Lingering Souls is a fast, fast clock when it needs to be
Can't stop, won't stop drafting 5-color. 3-0, only game loss was to decking myself.
Though none of the new cards showed up in our quick little 4-man draft earlier this week, which wound up as: UR tempo, UW control, G(B) ramp, and RB aggro (me). Only got two rounds in; I drew poorly against UW but still nearly won a game in which my lethal Burst Lightning was countered, then I absolutely destroyed the ramp deck when he didn't cast a spell before Cultivate on T3 in G1 and could do not much more in G2.
Only sure-thing Oath additions are going to be:
Reflector Mage is certainly cool, but I like having a more aggressive creature in Lyev Skyknight for the same role. Shoulder to Shoulder has been my favorite common from booster drafts, but I'm not totally sold on it in the Cube context.
Looks insane
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!
Thoughts: super-grindy Dimir deck which beat me in like an 80-minute match thanks to Diabolic Servitude. No reason to play 14-3 lands, but it had some really sweet Pyschatog-Victimize shenanigans going on.
Thoughts: Splashed a 7-drop in a Monastery Swiftspear deck for "funsies" but still went 1-1. I'm also not sure why so many red aggressive players in my cube are drawn to play red control cards like Breath of Darigaaz, but maybe there's some logic in having a card that can catch you up when way behind even if it'll be uncastable in some board states (usually ones that you're winning).
Mardu control... (me). Very fun archetype. Sentinel was insane, Bane not so much, but it was still able to trade for two (useless) lands, one relevant creature, and one irrelevant one at its "worst" case. Fleshbag Marauder was probably enough of a nonbo with my aura-based removal that it should've been a fairly iffy sideboard card. Faithless Looting also was great... I think it discarded like six lands and two finishers which I was able to play early-ish off Unburial Rites.
UW, but not quite enough oomph to finish in the skies after getting shields up with one both Propaganda effects. In one of my games against him, I just paid 4 and happily bashed away with my Sentinel five times 'til he was dead.
EDIT: Missed the nonbasics. Still, that deck's funny.
UR-with-five-actual-creatures Tempo (me, 1-1)
Mono-black Lashknife (2-0)
GW not-enough-ramp (0-2)
Jund Good Cards (1-1)
Coming in:
Going into the "maybe" box:
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
UW mostly control, with four or five flex cards to board into a more or less aggressive strategy.
Almost mono-red. The first 20 spells are eh, whatever, but Fire Covenant and Grafted Wargear and Shrine of Burning Rage really are some busted Magic cards.
UB control-reanimator (me). The discard-Eldrazi-Dance of the Dead package never actually worked together, but looting kept my card quality high, the reanimate stuff bought back 187 creatures and my opponents' threats, and the stupid Eldrazi were just hard-cast as wincons.
Naya Stuff. Every time I looked over at this deck in action (or played against it), the pilot was cascading into awful, awful hits like Vines of Vastwood or Harm's Way. Part of that is probably deckbuilding mistake of having four such cards to hit... but also it's just bad luck, since BBE has 11/15 good hits, and Enlisted Wurm 17/21.
Awesome Orzhov deck won at 2-0. The mana is a little iffy with lots of BB alongside Spectral Procession, but once it had the right lands in play the cards were super powerful. Maw of the Obzedat did insane against me, winning a couple of games out of basically nowhere.
Red Menace, again splashing black, at 1-1. Same pilot as the last mono-splash-black deck from the previous post, not quite the same result since it was lacking both Shrine and Wargear.
Bant Stuff (me) also at 1-1. Probably woulda been 2-0 if not for the damn Maw. One of the best Opportunity decks I've seen from my cube in a long time. P1P1'd the Sledge, which is far from at its best here with a fairly low creature count, but still a great little card.
RG Stuff at 0-2. I think at some point there was a Monastery Swiftspear in the deck, I kid you not. The first ~18 spells of the deck actually aren't that bad, and has good finishers at 6-8 mana, but it has too many clunky 4's and is short on both ramp and early interactive stuff (a la Leafcrown Dryad, things to just trade off in combat on T3).
Casting Gurmag Angler for B and exiling six lands from the graveyard.
Worse-than-usual deck photo of my Grixis concoction that 3-0'd
Bonus crappy photo of my truly horrendous powered cube deck that also 3-0'd at the last FNM. Classic Tooth-and-Oppo-Twin archetype.
That same draft (another 4-person one) I P1P1'd Reanimate and forced, well, Reanimator... wound up with a pretty sweet one, nice mix of all the necessary pieces. Photo coming later.
Played Mardu Control again. 'Twas sweet again
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
I like the Timely alter as well!
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!
Draft it on Cubetutor here, and CubeCobra here.
Treasure Cruise did nothing wrong.
It's close, but only really feels that way when the Timely dudes get to tangle with (and kill) multiple no-evasion X/1s. The average case is good-to-great, not "back breaking".
That Mirror Match deck looks like my kind of fun.
Draft it on Cubetutor here, and CubeCobra here.
Treasure Cruise did nothing wrong.