MTG Salvation

Hey all!

I'm in the process of assembling a Peasant cube to draft, which also turns out to be my first cube too! There are some proxy cards in the cube in total.

This list is constantly a work in progress, and any kind of critique or advice is welcome.

EDIT 10/01/16: Sometimes I'm quite forgetful in updating this thread at times, so I've attached my CubeTutor list and visual spoiler for the full list of cards and additional updates.


CubeTutor List

CubeTutor Visual Spoiler

Unfortunately I haven't been able to draft this cube of mine yet.

There are some cards missing (or that I haven't been able to acquire for some reason) in the card pool, so I plan to proxy them up until I get my hands on physical copies.

At the moment, I'm a bit iffy about Warbrute, but I'd like to see how well it works when I draft this cube.
I may potentially replace it with another 4-drop if things don't turn out well (i.e. Keldon Champion or Gorehorn Minotaurs).

The knight that pumps itself is almost certainly worse than youthful knight, fwiw.

I would be surprised if Traveler's amulet lasted for too long. As your cube speeds up, it should be too slow.

Be wary of lingering souls. It is borderline OP. Also your cube is going to be swayed towards the people who are able to pick those equipment. Any type of flyer becomes very scary quick with a bonesplitter or Grafted Wargear in play.

Just a few minor changes I did to my cube, even though I haven't gotten around to drafting it yet. :s

+Ulamog's Crusher, -Pathrazer of Ulamog
+Blood Ogre, -Thunder Brute
+Gorehorn Minotaurs, -Chartooth Cougar

I felt Red would be okay with just one 6-drop. I'd love to try out Firebird, but I might ditch it for Shockmaw Dragon or put back Chartooth Cougar if it doesn't stay.
I also felt 11 mana was a bit much for a fatty in this type of cube. I could reanimate it or ramp into it, but I can't see Pathrazer outside of those archetypes. Even then, Pathrazer would be tricky to ramp into imo.

Quote from Leelue »

The knight that pumps itself is almost certainly worse than Youthful knight, fwiw.

In retrospect, the stats don't look so great on Capashen Knight. I thought it would be a sweet card, but looking at it again it feels a bit clunky (I feel as though I want to to play something else rather than pump the knight).

What should I replace this guy with? So far I've considered Knight of Glory or Lone Missionary as a replacement.

Quote from Bakgat »

Any type of flyer becomes very scary quick with a Bonesplitter or Grafted Wargear in play.

I don't particularly mind the usage of Bonesplitter as a means of a quick buff to any dude, be it a token, flier or ETB guy. However, I am myself going to see how Wargear plays (for what it does it seems ballistic in draft) and whether it will stay or get the boot due to power level. :0

Squirrely, how is grafted wargear in games where you don't have bounce or artifact removal?

I managed to sleeve up my cube (including proxies) recently, and I'll hopefully be able to have an 8-man draft later this week (and some 2-man drafts with my brother once every now and then).

A few changes I made before drafting:

+Benalish Cavalry, -Capashen Knight
+Golgari Brownscale, -Trusted Forcemage
+Hour of Need, -Forbid

Kinda playing around with Hour and Brownscale to see how they go in draft.

Managed to do a 2-man quilt draft last night with my brother, with three 6x6 quilts. My brother ended up winning 2-0 with a weird 5-colour control deck which also looked like a lot of fun to play.


Last night was pretty fun. Both games usually consisted of my brother winning via Cloning Master Splicer and beating me up with some pumped up golems.

I almost won the second game with the help of Pierce Strider and stuff, only for my brother to cast Enlisted Wurm, cascading into Goblin Trenches and makings things worse. Not to mention he had a whole bunch of goblins and buffed golems to beat me up with.

But overall it was a pretty fun game and we really enjoyed it. At the same time we do hope to draft with at least 8-people in total once we get assignments out of the way.

Final Thoughts
- I didn't see Warbrute in any of the quilts, but I feel as though I should replace it with something else soon.
- My brother drafted Traveler's Amulet but never ended up using it. Might cut that card too. :s

How did you balance doing an odd number of quilts

Looking back I should've done something like two 7x7 quilts to give my brother and I 49 cards, but since we haven't quilt drafted before (and I myself am still new to cubing as a whole) we decided to go with three 6x6 quilts to give us both 54 cards. :s

White only had a few good cards available, whilst green was probably the worst of all three packs. For some reason my instinct was to draft the relatively good stuff that happened to be within red or black. My brother on the other hand went with a tonne of blue cards and some of the cool gold cards available in some of the packs.

It has been my experience that quilting is a better experience if you don't draft the whole quilt. Instead, I toss the last 30 or so percent

Interesting. I might give it a try the next time I decide to quilt draft. (Sorry for the late response. I've been really busy with assignments and all. )

I would agree with Leelue. The times I have quilted I have dropped close to half of each quilt, which definitely improves the quality of the decks.

I might try out those ideas the next time I quilt draft (maybe trying two 8x8 packs, perhaps ditching 30% of each pack). Again, I'm still kinda new to cubing as a whole, so it's really exciting to learn about these things.

In other news, I swapped out a few cards for ones that I felt were more exciting to see how they will go in the next time I draft the cube, be it two-man or more...

+Keldon Champion, -Gorehorn Minotaurs
+Welkin Tern, -Cloudskate
+Condescend, -Dissolve
+Shockmaw Dragon, -Skarrgan Firebird
+Carrion Feeder, -Stab Wound

Additionally I have been considering adding on an extra 15 cards to the cube alongside an Origins update, therefore bumping this cube up to 375. Would it be a bad idea to add 10 extra guild cards (i.e. +1 card for each guild) and 5 mono colour cards?

Quote from traprootkami »

In other news, I swapped out a few cards for ones that I felt were more exciting to see how they will go in the next time I draft the cube, be it two-man or more...

+Keldon Champion, -Gorehorn Minotaurs
+Welkin Tern, -Cloudskate
+Condescend, -Dissolve
+Shockmaw Dragon, -Skarrgan Firebird
+Carrion Feeder, -Stab Wound

Those all seem like good changes to me. I don't currently have any of the cards you cut in my cube, and I have several of the ones you added.

Quote from traprootkami »

Additionally I have been considering adding on an extra 15 cards to the cube alongside an Origins update, therefore bumping this cube up to 375. Would it be a bad idea to add 10 extra guild cards (i.e. +1 card for each guild) and 5 mono colour cards?

That seems reasonable to me. I did essentially the exact same thing when I first built my cube because I couldn't find a cut that I liked from each guild.

Made some Origins updates to my cube, as well as bumping the cube size to 375.

A bit nervous but also excited to test out these new additions. Some of the changes are experimental, so hopefully everything works out. :s


Additionally I've removed the 'Need/Proxy' tag from my Cubetutor page, even though I don't have all of my cards in physical form.

After not playing this cube in ages, I decided it was time to freshen things up, alongside updating it with some new BFZ stuff. Hopefully I can test out these new changes some time soon.

+ Catacomb Sifter, - Spider Spawning
+ Plated Crusher, - Druid’s Familiar
+ Undercity Troll, - Hermit Druid
+ Behemoth Sledge, - Travel Preparations (Travel Prep was okay, but I'll see how the [card[Behemoth Sledge[/card] goes.
+ Blighted Cataract, - Sleep
+ Eldrazi Skyspawner, - Illusory Angel
+ Trophy Hunter, - Sylvok Replica
+ Carrier Thrall, - Necromantic Summons
+ Hordeling Outburst, - Impact Tremors
+ Expedition Envoy, - Cloudshift
+ Lyev Skynight, - Skymark Roc
+ Custodi Squire, - Ornitharch
+ Eldrazi Devastator, - Ulamog’s Crusher
+ Pilgrim's Eye, - Darksteel Ingot
+ Sarcomancy, - Buried Alive
+ Cloudfin Raptor, - Phantasmal Bear
+ Augury Owl, - Frost Walker
+ Goblin Glory Chaser, - Shockmaw Dragon
+ Bane of Bala Ged, - Wayfarer's Bauble
+ Murder of Crows, - Peregrine Drake (I considered Air Elemental, but I feel Storm Crow Army was slightly better in this regard)

Everything is pretty agreeable; only slight complains are that Druid's Familar is a huge beatstick for any green aggro deck, and Pilgrim's Eye has never really felt like a playable Peasant cube card to me.

Admittedly my brother and I really like Familiar, so I think cutting it for Plated Crusher was not an ideal thing to do. I'm hoping I can bring Familiar back into the cube shortly. Either that or I'll see if I can put it back and swap out something else for Cruhser, but I'm not sure what. :s

Pilgrim's Eye, on the other hand, is a card I've been contemplating on trying for a while. Probably not the best option, but I'll see how it plays out in draft.

I second the Talisman. The dream would be having that with Ajani's Pridemate, Serene Steward, and Prophetic Prism to assemble the best Human/Cat sidekickHero combo! In all seriousness though, control decks love it, and the "incidental" lifegain can easily gain you 5+ life in many of the decks it appears in.

Hey all! It's been a while. Apologies for not updating for so long. I was previously busy with assignments and all a couple of months back. :s

Recently I've been meaning to iron out the power level of my cube, so that it allows for a more healthier draft and cube environment instead of a 'best of' kind of peasant cube.

Cuts made thus far:
+ Stasis Snare, - Soltari Champion
As much as I was anticipating this card, it was quite scary and overpowered for the cube environment to see on the board without an answer. It was essentially near impossible to get rid of Champion, so the playgroup and I agreed that it should go ASAP.
+ Nantuko Husk, - Demonic Tutor
While Demonic Tutor is a very good card, I too felt that maybe it was a little bit too unfair and unhealthy for the cube, being an unconditional tutor and all. Rather than replace it with something lesser like Diabolic Tutor, I decided to make a small addition to the R/B Sacrifice archetype.
+ Spawning Bed, - Ancient Tomb
This cut/swap is more of an experimental one. Tomb might make a comeback.
+ Jace's Ingenuity, - Gush
I felt as though Gush was a bit lacklustre for me in cube. As amazing as it is in constructed, I don't think it sits well here.
+ Brave the Elements, - Banishing Light
Wasn't too much of a fan of Onion Ring and Banishing Light redundancy. Should the cube get bigger, it might return. For now, I wanted to add a little thing for Mono-W and W/x weenie strategies.
+ Shelter, - Feat of Resistance
Feat of Resistance is pretty cool, but I sorta prefer the card advantage over the +1/+1 counter shindig.
+ Drana's Emissary, - Tithe Drinker
Really want to try out Emissary in cube. c:
+ Search for Tomorrow, - Vines of Vastwood
Slowly trying to improve ramp in the cube. Also not fussed with cutting Vines.
+ Overrun, - Blessings of Nature

Watchlist:
Hymn to Tourach
Quite devastating in draft, but hasn't seen much play. Might need to test it out more, but it's the card I'm most likely to cut next.
Loxodon Warhammer
Starting to hate seeing this card every time it hits the battlefield.
Enlightened Tutor and Worldly Tutor
A little skeptical about these cards, but might leave them in for a while to see how they perform. :s

I'm also considering if I should reduce the amount of Naturalize effects in my green section and replace them with other dudes or some non-creature stuff.

Current Naturalize buds:
Reclamation Sage
Wickebough Elder
Acidic Slime
Conclave Naturalists

Additionally, what other suggestions/cuts should I add to my cube to help balance out the draft environment?

What do you think is out of balance?
I love all of those naturalize creatures you talked about, and I cut lox hammer long ago.

At the moment a lot of things look fine in my cube, bar Hymn and Hammer.

I guess when it comes to stuff being out of balance, a potential concern would be whether some of the removal would be too powerful in some circumstances?

(i.e. things like Go for the Throat acting as a 1B version of Murder, maaaybe Bolt being a popular pick etc)

I've also heard some concern from others about Bloodbraid, but should I eventually replace it I'm not sure what I would do so with. :S

Managed to have a 6-man draft yesterday, despite 39C/102F weather on the day.

Unfortunately I didn't get to record the exact decklists, but I do remember the archetypes that were played somehow. :s

UR Burn
RG Aggro
GW Weenie
WB Aggro
GW Midrange (brother)
BR Painful Aggro (me)

Notes
Fire Covenant is perhaps one of my favourite cards in the entire cube.

Orc Sureshot + Lingering Souls w/ flashback in the same turn = absolute gravy.

Jilt saw a bit of action in the UR Burn deck, but unfortunately it was played mostly unkicked in most circumstances.

Behemoth Sledge was perhaps a little too powerful, in the sense that whenever GW Midrange would play it, the game would be over pretty quickly. I’m considering swapping this out for another Selesnya card.


Overall the draft and cube as a whole was a blast to play! Hoping to draft it again some time soon.

I only recently put jilt back in my list, but it is in my opinion quite good. I don't know what circumstances would leave someone to majority use the unsummon mode.
Tajuru beastmaster seems quite poor