Also I don't think that they can do monocolour gates both because of the flavour and the math about the whole 25 "basic lands" thing - 5 of which turned out to be gates. (There's a thread about this in the rumour mill, I don't know that much about it personally).
Five of the basic lands are gates? I don't see that anywhere, not even on the official visual spoiler.
One weird thing though is that they reprinted one art for each of the land types from the original Ravnica. Haven't figured out why yet.
Asking out a girl is like trying to cast a first turn Necropotence. Sometimes the other player will have the Force of Will to say no. You shouldn't let that stop you from trying it.
Basic Gates would make no sense because they just make cards that rely on Gates, like Ogre Jailbreaker, very easy to activate.
There are no basic Gates. The 25 basics for RTR are all here. They did an extra fifth set of basics for RTR to reprint art from original Ravnica, as Dragoon has stated, probably for nostalgia points.
What do folks here plan on doing to make room for the gates? I'm currently thinking of cutting the borderposts (these have always bothered me since they are only allied pairs) and possibly the panoramas. Thoughts?
Borderposts are fine. But Panoramas are so good. I may rearrange some numbers, or just look to cutting bouncelands.
Eyes in the Skies - 3W
Instant
Put a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying onto the battlefield, then populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
I do not intend to talk about every common that comes up. However, this is basically the Pauper equivalent of Midnight Haunting.
The instant speed is its main selling point. We have had 2 other ones (Master's Call | Raise the Alarm) that really did not shine because of how tight and aggressive this format is. However, this gives control and midrange an option to surprise or simply hold open mana. The only cards that makes the populate mechanic worthwhile are Penumbra Spider and Elephant Ambush*.
I'm going to be cutting cards from the colored (and possibly multicolored) sections of my cube to make room for the gates. I find that I don't have as many nonbasics as I would like and therefore making cuts in a draft are very difficult. I've been waiting for more common mana fixing for a while now.
As of right now, the only cards I'm excited about are the Gates and Grim Roustabout. Maybe Eye in the Sky to replace Captain's Call in my cube. But nothing else jumps out yet.
Asking out a girl is like trying to cast a first turn Necropotence. Sometimes the other player will have the Force of Will to say no. You shouldn't let that stop you from trying it.
Dragoon: I had to change my pants at seeing the Scorpion. That IS in my top 3 BG cards, and that is my most beloved color, so...
That said, I will be turning my 4th multicolor card into a hybrid slot. For some, UG and UW, they already have one so no change. Unfortunately the color combos with the weakest hybrids won't get better options till Febuary. WR, BW, UB... sigh...
Depending on how the rest of the set turns out, the 1G that gets basics and Gates could replace Sylvan Ranger more than easily. Yes it is crap on the attack, but no pinging and possibly getting a multi-land is, IMO, worth it.
Dragoon: I had to change my pants at seeing the Scorpion. That IS in my top 3 BG cards, and that is my most beloved color, so...
That said, I will be turning my 4th multicolor card into a hybrid slot. For some, UG and UW, they already have one so no change. Unfortunately the color combos with the weakest hybrids won't get better options till Febuary. WR, BW, UB... sigh...
Depending on how the rest of the set turns out, the 1G that gets basics and Gates could replace Sylvan Ranger more than easily. Yes it is crap on the attack, but no pinging and possibly getting a multi-land is, IMO, worth it.
I think it's slightly better than Sylvan Ranger, especially when we get all 10 gates eventually. I don't think either are cubable though. Civic Wayfnder and Borderland Ranger both have way better bodies.
I'm sure this has been discussed already (this thread is huge) and perhaps it's a bad time to try and talk about something other than spoilers now that RTR is approaching so soon, but I was wondering what are some of the most played deck archetypes that see play within your cubes/playgroups? Maybe even go ahead and explain differences you find in decks that show up consistently versus a deck that maybe is the "best" but has difficulty showing up for various reasons. Or just go ahead and say which is your favorite to play, I'd love to hear about it.
In my own little group, we've seen a rise in UR and UB Tempo decks that have been really strong lately. Was actually interesting to notice this over time since the UB combination seemed to evolve from a previously popular UW "Fliers" color combination. Guess we realized black provided a lot of sweet disruption elements. (A highlight of tonight was one of our players putting a little temporary lock on some of us with Cavern Harpy and Chittering Rats a couple of games. Felt pretty cool to have something like that happen in pauper.)
That's just the recent hot decks, but we usually see typical aggro decks as well. Probably Boros and RB Aggro as the most common. Throw burn in anything and it seems to get better. After that, I'd say a WB "Evasion" deck fairs pretty well. Green likes to show up from time to time to support these colors too, mainly red or white, but it seems to dance a fine line between staying aggro or shifting the deck build closer towards midrange for us (more with white than red).
Speaking of midrange, we have a strong showing of BG "Value" and UG Ramp here. Fun decks, with BG being one of my favorites. I also tend to end up UG a lot of the time as well, which is odd because I don't particularly want to. Just tend to pick strong cards like Capsize or Mulldrifter and the next thing I know I'm grabbing ramp and I'm in the deck. There's also the BW Pestilence deck here (or is it control?), but as a group we struggle to put it together consistently. Guess the pieces are fought over by too many decks/colors, but it feels really strong when the pieces do fall into place.
Control itself is actually one of our weaker points as a group, but that's a personal playstyle problem with us. I'd say most, if not all of us, are aggro players at heart so that's what we tend to try and pick right away. I'm probably the one who drafts control the most, and it's more because everyone is cutting each other nice aggro cards and I'm picking up nice control spells. Our best seems to be UB Control, often shifting into Grixis Control when something nice like Firebolt or Strangling Soot comes by where you go, "Yeah, I can splash for that." We had UW Control be a thing for a while, but after a couple of key changes, it's not quite as common anymore. It's more likely that the UB transitions into Esper if white gets played in the control archetype.
I'll cut this here as it's getting quite long. So as I first asked, what are the kind of decks you often see and like to play in your own cubes? I'm curious to see how similar or different it might be between each other.
My playgroup has a stupidly ingrained infatuation with any kind of 4 or 5-color deck, regardless of whether it's control, ramp or even aggro (:trolo:). Another hilariously strange trend is one particular person in my playgroup has persisted to play mono blue tempo for the past two drafts. They've been fairly successful but I'm not so sure about their future.
A few of my playgroup has these very specific preferences. One of my friends always drafts some kind of Bx aggro deck, and another always plays either Boros or Naya. It's pretty funny.
On that note, RGx aggro decks, either RG or RGW, have been really successful over here. Burn provides very sick reach indeed.
Personally, I will just draft whatever - I have no reasons. In recent memory I've drafted RG aggro, UB Skies and most recently, a sick UW deck that I've really enjoyed piloting.
WB control is like the best deck here. It has lots of disruption and answers and reliable threats.
UR is the best tempo deck, and can really work. It revolves around having a couple of 1-2 drops and cards to ensure that they hit every turn.
UG(x)[y]{z} is the most common ramp deck, but generally uses ramp spells mainly as fixing because the high end commons are normally bad. The exception are the decks with a large number of red X burn spells. Sometimes called 5 colour control, but I like to think of it and draft it slightly differently.
RB/RW/RG aggro: The straightforward dudes and burn decks. They're normally pretty good.
GW aggro: This is a different deck. It runs a very large number of dudes, along with about 5 or so ways to get the damage in (Blinding Beam or Travel Preparations, for example). I normally run minimal or no removal in this deck because you can generally power through and win the race without removal. There are'nt that many big roadblock threats in the cube, and very few that can't just be trumped by a Rancor.
Question: What do people think about Aven Squire over Leonin Skyhunter? I'm leaning towards doing that in my next update at least for a test.
I have both of them in, because good 2 drops to get rebel fetched, but I don't like hardcasting either of them. Best of the two is the cat though.
In my cube, some of the more populars are WW(with me drafting it 90% of the time), mono R, Ux control, B/Ux tempo and RG aggro are the most popular archetypes
EDI:30 multicolor cards for 270 is rly low
My favorite deck to draft out of my cube as of late has been Grixis Control. Artifact acceleration, 2-3 draw spells, 5-6 removal spells, an X spell and some finishers and support cards and it comes together nicely.
Someone usually drafts Bant midrange, someone else tends to draft Jund midrange, and Boros aggro is pretty common as well, among a myriad of other decks that are less frequent.
Asking out a girl is like trying to cast a first turn Necropotence. Sometimes the other player will have the Force of Will to say no. You shouldn't let that stop you from trying it.
The 0/2 defender that fetches gates looks pretty bad for pauper. It has almost no board presence other than fog'ing a creature once. And it doesn't even ramp by just putting the card into your hand. The Borderland Ranger and stuff are good because a 2/2 actually has a decent board presence, which this card does not.
Rakdos Shred-Freak looks amazing by filling another important hole in the 2cc drop for both red and black. Pretty much a must play. It will function a lot like Goblin Patrol, which is good by the way, and is better in the last game.
-----------------------------------
Leonin Skyhunter is hands down better Rubin. It's still a decent play on the 3 drop.
------------------------------------------
That Scorpion is amazing by the way. Scavange is such a powerful keyword in the world of pauper, and it allows you to be able to trade upwards with Deathtouch. So good!
-------------------------------
B/R seems to be the dominant force in my cube.
------------------------------
@Catullo: In 270 you want to be running about 20 multicoloured excluding hybrids.
------------------------------------
At this rate Ravinica is shaping up to be a pretty good set for us, and I haven't even mentioned the mana-fixers which we were sorely missing. It's going to be super awesome!
GW aggro: This is a different deck. It runs a very large number of dudes, along with about 5 or so ways to get the damage in (Blinding Beam or Travel Preparations, for example). I normally run minimal or no removal in this deck because you can generally power through and win the race without removal. There are'nt that many big roadblock threats in the cube, and very few that can't just be trumped by a Rancor.
This is a deck I've actually been trying to draft more often lately. I picked up Attended Knight and Travel Preparations in a draft one night, and proceeded to go Knight into next turn Prep+flashback a couple games which is a glorious matching of cards in my opinion. Been slightly hooked ever since.
I also prefer Skyhunter over Aven Squire too, but the WW cost has been an concern among some of my members. One even asked why we didn't have Mistral Charger which I'm assuming was based off Stormfront Pegasus being a real card.
I'm planning on proxying out the other 5 gates when rtr gets released. I don't feel like waiting for another set to get even out my mana fixing. Looks like I can use a shivan oasis and a salt marsh as stand ins for two of the gates.
I think I'm going with 10 bounce, 10 gate, 5 panorama, 10 signet, 5 cycling lands at 400 cards. Thats about 1.4 mana fixing cards per pack.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
That's the remarkable thing about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse
Calvin and Hobbes Cube Tutor
I'm pretty sure that the panoramas will make their way out of my cube with either the first or the second lot of gates. They've never impressed here, there were just no better options.
Also pringles if you're playing panoramas and cycling lands you definitely should include the borderposts.
anytime there is a focus on a color/multicolor things change. Look at how much of your cube has the new (post-Mirrodin) border. Probably 90% of mine.
I know I will look VERY hard at the commons coming out of this because if anything could change my mind about the count of multicolor cards it is Ravnica. That said, there will always be a few old ones that never leave: Consume Strength, Jilt, Orim's Thunder, etc.
Okay, stay calm guys and don't do anything stupid like cut the borderposts. Just because we finally get actual duals doesn't mean we need to cut their functional artifact cousins just because they don't come in the enemy flavour.
Also their isn't the dramatic need to cut the panoramas either. Sure they might not be optimum, but they do their job fine in not 1 but 3 different colour combinations. We need all the colour fixing we can get currently without doing anything rash.
I still hold my stance against Signets, which is not to run them, but that is a personal choice not to give colours outside green too much mana ramp.
My current stance with a hybrid section is that is a good idea, but only when we have enough cubables to have a section for each colour. Until that point I'm happy to count them in Multicoloured, even though I would prefer that section to be reserved for cards that force you to play both colours.
The fact that he can kill 2/2s is interesting, but you'll rarely play him as a 2/3 in the earlygame, and I'm not so sure I like him all that as a 3/4 non-blocker. Four toughness is fairly huge, though.
I feel once we see the Azorious commons either Ghostly Flicker or Momentary Blink's stock will rise in cubes. I was looking to re-add Blink, I had cut it for Saving Grasp, and honestly did not regret that decision.
Scavenge (read: Sluiceway Scorpion) makes Tortured Existence once again stronger than it was.
Still waiting for Overload to be a bust as Pauper level
What was your opinion on the Raise the Alarm for birds Lanxal?
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Five of the basic lands are gates? I don't see that anywhere, not even on the official visual spoiler.
One weird thing though is that they reprinted one art for each of the land types from the original Ravnica. Haven't figured out why yet.
Level 1 DCI Judge
Check out my Commons Cube.
There are no basic Gates. The 25 basics for RTR are all here. They did an extra fifth set of basics for RTR to reprint art from original Ravnica, as Dragoon has stated, probably for nostalgia points.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Not a whole lot else jumps out at as me as of yet, though I kinda like the wall that tutors a basic or Gate.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Sig courtesy of Disappointing Signet Inc.
My Cubes:
Goblin Pile Shuffler's 360 Card Pauper Cube - updated 1/4/2014
Goblin Pile Shuffler's 270 Card One-Drop Cube - updated 1/4/2014
Eyes in the Skies - 3W
Instant
Put a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying onto the battlefield, then populate. (Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a creature token you control.)
I do not intend to talk about every common that comes up. However, this is basically the Pauper equivalent of Midnight Haunting.
The instant speed is its main selling point. We have had 2 other ones (Master's Call | Raise the Alarm) that really did not shine because of how tight and aggressive this format is. However, this gives control and midrange an option to surprise or simply hold open mana. The only cards that makes the populate mechanic worthwhile are Penumbra Spider and Elephant Ambush*.
*Deadly Grub, Giantbaiting, Maul SPlicer, Rukh Egg, and Zektar Shrine really won't happen. Only the Splicer seems in any form of good regard right now.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
As of right now, the only cards I'm excited about are the Gates and Grim Roustabout. Maybe Eye in the Sky to replace Captain's Call in my cube. But nothing else jumps out yet.
Level 1 DCI Judge
Check out my Commons Cube.
EDIT:Splicer and Rukh egg are very good.
EDIT2: I also like the 1G 0/2 tutor
My errata'd commons cube
That said, I will be turning my 4th multicolor card into a hybrid slot. For some, UG and UW, they already have one so no change. Unfortunately the color combos with the weakest hybrids won't get better options till Febuary. WR, BW, UB... sigh...
Depending on how the rest of the set turns out, the 1G that gets basics and Gates could replace Sylvan Ranger more than easily. Yes it is crap on the attack, but no pinging and possibly getting a multi-land is, IMO, worth it.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
I think it's slightly better than Sylvan Ranger, especially when we get all 10 gates eventually. I don't think either are cubable though. Civic Wayfnder and Borderland Ranger both have way better bodies.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
In my own little group, we've seen a rise in UR and UB Tempo decks that have been really strong lately. Was actually interesting to notice this over time since the UB combination seemed to evolve from a previously popular UW "Fliers" color combination. Guess we realized black provided a lot of sweet disruption elements. (A highlight of tonight was one of our players putting a little temporary lock on some of us with Cavern Harpy and Chittering Rats a couple of games. Felt pretty cool to have something like that happen in pauper.)
That's just the recent hot decks, but we usually see typical aggro decks as well. Probably Boros and RB Aggro as the most common. Throw burn in anything and it seems to get better. After that, I'd say a WB "Evasion" deck fairs pretty well. Green likes to show up from time to time to support these colors too, mainly red or white, but it seems to dance a fine line between staying aggro or shifting the deck build closer towards midrange for us (more with white than red).
Speaking of midrange, we have a strong showing of BG "Value" and UG Ramp here. Fun decks, with BG being one of my favorites. I also tend to end up UG a lot of the time as well, which is odd because I don't particularly want to. Just tend to pick strong cards like Capsize or Mulldrifter and the next thing I know I'm grabbing ramp and I'm in the deck. There's also the BW Pestilence deck here (or is it control?), but as a group we struggle to put it together consistently. Guess the pieces are fought over by too many decks/colors, but it feels really strong when the pieces do fall into place.
Control itself is actually one of our weaker points as a group, but that's a personal playstyle problem with us. I'd say most, if not all of us, are aggro players at heart so that's what we tend to try and pick right away. I'm probably the one who drafts control the most, and it's more because everyone is cutting each other nice aggro cards and I'm picking up nice control spells. Our best seems to be UB Control, often shifting into Grixis Control when something nice like Firebolt or Strangling Soot comes by where you go, "Yeah, I can splash for that." We had UW Control be a thing for a while, but after a couple of key changes, it's not quite as common anymore. It's more likely that the UB transitions into Esper if white gets played in the control archetype.
I'll cut this here as it's getting quite long. So as I first asked, what are the kind of decks you often see and like to play in your own cubes? I'm curious to see how similar or different it might be between each other.
A few of my playgroup has these very specific preferences. One of my friends always drafts some kind of Bx aggro deck, and another always plays either Boros or Naya. It's pretty funny.
On that note, RGx aggro decks, either RG or RGW, have been really successful over here. Burn provides very sick reach indeed.
Personally, I will just draft whatever - I have no reasons. In recent memory I've drafted RG aggro, UB Skies and most recently, a sick UW deck that I've really enjoyed piloting.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
UR is the best tempo deck, and can really work. It revolves around having a couple of 1-2 drops and cards to ensure that they hit every turn.
UG(x)[y]{z} is the most common ramp deck, but generally uses ramp spells mainly as fixing because the high end commons are normally bad. The exception are the decks with a large number of red X burn spells. Sometimes called 5 colour control, but I like to think of it and draft it slightly differently.
RB/RW/RG aggro: The straightforward dudes and burn decks. They're normally pretty good.
GW aggro: This is a different deck. It runs a very large number of dudes, along with about 5 or so ways to get the damage in (Blinding Beam or Travel Preparations, for example). I normally run minimal or no removal in this deck because you can generally power through and win the race without removal. There are'nt that many big roadblock threats in the cube, and very few that can't just be trumped by a Rancor.
Question: What do people think about Aven Squire over Leonin Skyhunter? I'm leaning towards doing that in my next update at least for a test.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
In my cube, some of the more populars are WW(with me drafting it 90% of the time), mono R, Ux control, B/Ux tempo and RG aggro are the most popular archetypes
EDI:30 multicolor cards for 270 is rly low
My errata'd commons cube
Someone usually drafts Bant midrange, someone else tends to draft Jund midrange, and Boros aggro is pretty common as well, among a myriad of other decks that are less frequent.
Level 1 DCI Judge
Check out my Commons Cube.
Rakdos Shred-Freak looks amazing by filling another important hole in the 2cc drop for both red and black. Pretty much a must play. It will function a lot like Goblin Patrol, which is good by the way, and is better in the last game.
-----------------------------------
Leonin Skyhunter is hands down better Rubin. It's still a decent play on the 3 drop.
------------------------------------------
That Scorpion is amazing by the way. Scavange is such a powerful keyword in the world of pauper, and it allows you to be able to trade upwards with Deathtouch. So good!
-------------------------------
B/R seems to be the dominant force in my cube.
------------------------------
@Catullo: In 270 you want to be running about 20 multicoloured excluding hybrids.
------------------------------------
At this rate Ravinica is shaping up to be a pretty good set for us, and I haven't even mentioned the mana-fixers which we were sorely missing. It's going to be super awesome!
I also prefer Skyhunter over Aven Squire too, but the WW cost has been an concern among some of my members. One even asked why we didn't have Mistral Charger which I'm assuming was based off Stormfront Pegasus being a real card.
I think I'm going with 10 bounce, 10 gate, 5 panorama, 10 signet, 5 cycling lands at 400 cards. Thats about 1.4 mana fixing cards per pack.
Calvin and Hobbes
Cube Tutor
Also pringles if you're playing panoramas and cycling lands you definitely should include the borderposts.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I know I will look VERY hard at the commons coming out of this because if anything could change my mind about the count of multicolor cards it is Ravnica. That said, there will always be a few old ones that never leave: Consume Strength, Jilt, Orim's Thunder, etc.
If you had to use a UB Hyrbid which would it be?
Oona's Gatewarden
Gravegill Axeshark
Scarscale Ritual
I need Gatecrash real bad, b/c these are terrible, I think Gatewarden is the better.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
Also their isn't the dramatic need to cut the panoramas either. Sure they might not be optimum, but they do their job fine in not 1 but 3 different colour combinations. We need all the colour fixing we can get currently without doing anything rash.
I still hold my stance against Signets, which is not to run them, but that is a personal choice not to give colours outside green too much mana ramp.
My current stance with a hybrid section is that is a good idea, but only when we have enough cubables to have a section for each colour. Until that point I'm happy to count them in Multicoloured, even though I would prefer that section to be reserved for cards that force you to play both colours.
Unleashed
2/3
Interesting, but I am unsure if I can find room for something as simple as that.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
Not sure. I'm leaning on no.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
Scavenge (read: Sluiceway Scorpion) makes Tortured Existence once again stronger than it was.
Still waiting for Overload to be a bust as Pauper level
What was your opinion on the Raise the Alarm for birds Lanxal?
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube