I've had torch fiend and manic vandal in my cube forever. I've come close to cutting them many times to add cooler cards because they usually sit in sideboards. However, I can remember maindecked manic vandal doing serious work in the past. I mostly don't want to cut them because I think there should be SOME artifact removal outside of green.
I run Torch Fiend, but none of the other red artifact destruction cards. Torch Fiend has several advantages over all the other cards you listed:
- It has a reasonable body for its mana cost
- You can play it onto an empty board without wasting its ability, unlike Manic Vandals and all the other etb creatures
- It fits into reds primary archetype (aggro) much better than the others
Despite this, I find that I only maindeck Torch Fiend when I am lacking other 2 drops, which is rarely a problem. I hesitate to cut Torch Fiend because artifact removal is essential, but it is definitely the weakest two drop that I currently run in red.
The equipment destroyers are interesting, but overall too narrow and/or expensive.
I like Manic Vandal and Keldon Vandals a lot more than the bear versions. They're some of the easiest ways to build up card advantage. You get to blow something up and keep attacking! It's very rare for me to ever feel like they're stranded in hand with no targets. I agree Torch Fiends are at the bottom of the two-drops though.
I had another question for red, though. Do y'all think Martyr of Ashes has value as one of the rare (pun intended) sweepers at common? Are there any others you would put ahead of it? Aside from all the dividable burn spells, I mean
I like Manic Vandal and Keldon Vandals a lot more than the bear versions. They're some of the easiest ways to build up card advantage. You get to blow something up and keep attacking! It's very rare for me to ever feel like they're stranded in hand with no targets. I agree Torch Fiends are at the bottom of the two-drops though.
I had another question for red, though. Do y'all think Martyr of Ashes has value as one of the rare (pun intended) sweepers at common? Are there any others you would put ahead of it? Aside from all the dividable burn spells, I mean
I like Manic Vandal it is fairly rare for him to not have a target even if there isn't one on turn 1. However it is not a card for aggro decks, where Torch Fiend is much better. I cut Keldon Vandals because Manic Vandal was already filling his role of creature body + artifact removal. I am trying out Defiant Ogre as a big smashy 6-drop in red, but so far haven't tested him.
Martyr of Ashes is good. It fills a niche for a big early sweep controlling Red decks. But red isn't exactly lacking board clear with it's dividable damage. If Red for you is all aggro, then it's definitely cutable. In saying that there isn't any good replacements for Martyr of Ashes as it's simply the best there is for it's effect.
What are people's thoughts on Mold Shambler? Seems slightly too expensive for what it does, but its a naturalize / stone rain attached to a decent sized body. I've been looking at adding some flexible green land destruction spells since we got Reclaiming Vines, but it doesn't look like there are many other good options at the moment.
Edit: Also curious as to what you all think of Phantasmal Bear. I think that the vast majority of things that target it would kill it anyways, but it is extremely vulnerable to removal.
I think Phantasmal bear is only good if you play it in the first round, your opponent has no spell that targets (good luck with that) or in an illusion deck. So, no, I don't think it's that good.
What are people's thoughts on Mold Shambler? Seems slightly too expensive for what it does, but its a naturalize / stone rain attached to a decent sized body. I've been looking at adding some flexible green land destruction spells since we got Reclaiming Vines, but it doesn't look like there are many other good options at the moment.
Edit: Also curious as to what you all think of Phantasmal Bear. I think that the vast majority of things that target it would kill it anyways, but it is extremely vulnerable to removal.
I think Mold Shambler is not so great. Especially at sub-360 cards. As for Phantasmal Bear, it's not the kind of creature I want in blue. I'd rather exhaust the list of two-mana flyers before I get to the bear
Phantasmal Bear falls into the same category as Welkin Tern, Vaporkin, Cloud Spirit and many other cards that would be staples in R, W and B, but just don't make the cut in U. The reason for this is that if you want true control decks to be viable in your cube, you have to make U support it fully, because no other color can. All other colors can dedicate a lot of slots to aggro and make it a viable strategy overall. Midrange always works automatically. If U also supported Aggro, there would be no room for the control finishers, counter spells, draw effects or whatever that make control work. UX Tempo/aggro still works perfectly fine in cube, because there are enough overlap creatures in the CC3 and CC4 slot that can be used as control finishers and aggro curve-toppers and there is also bounce and efficient counters, which work well in both archetypes. But at the end of the day you just don't have room for true aggro creatures in U.
Wow, you are stating this like this it's obviously empirically true. You are so flat out wrong.
If you draft 3 packs of 15 cards each with 8 players, you have TONS of room to support aggro in blue and lots of other much weirder stuff too.
And the idea that heavily supporting control is only possible in blue is also just not even close to true.
I tried Phantasmal Bear for a while, but yeah. The fact, that you cant target the bear ureself makes it realy bad. A 2/2 is outclassed real fast and no pump, aura or equip can help. Also its sad, if a tapper can kill your dude.
One thing I find interesting is that Manic Vandal seems to be a controversial figure in pauper despite being one of the easiest 2-for-1s around. Using one spell to diminish the opponent's board position while advancing your own is the mark of a strong card. Doing it cheaply is what makes it cubeable. But players advocate putting Torch Fiend ahead of it, a card which requires you to give up board position instead of adding to it? This goes against every concept of card advantage in Magic. And getting a bad beats story every once in a while where you destroy your own target is the exception, not the rule. Or do you think Flametongue Kavu should be benched because it might occasionally blow up your own creature??? Are there really so few targets?
I know Red needs the cheap removal, and the rattlesnake effect of Torch Fiend is decent as a way to cash out after you've done some damage. I think Fiend and Vandal are both essential in pauper because they represent the two sides of tempo and card advantage.
I do agree with Wild Celebrants over Defiant Ogre (but if you wouldn't play the Ogre, why would you play Mold Shambler???)
Aftershock is as close as we have to a common Vindicate. Fissure hits less targets and costs more. I'd be interested to see the reasoning on that one
And the idea that heavily supporting control is only possible in blue is also just not even close to true.
I'm really getting annoyed if people start questioning the most basic concepts of cube building, because it's honestly just too annoying to explain it all over again. Tell me why Blue is the only color in which people play more spells than creatures. Tell me why people play half as many 2-drops in blue than in any other color. Tell me why a ton of blue aggressive creatures don't make the cut in anyone's cubes even though the other colors would kill for those cards. Tell me exactly what other colors have counter spells and extensive card draw outside of blue. I never said you couldn't build non-blue control decks. And I never said the other colors didn't have cards that are good in control. Don't put words in my mouth. It's all a question of the color pie and of a healthy metagame in which all 3 pillars of a format are supported well enough. All other four colors support aggro more than control in cube. That is simply a fact. For a classic control deck based on instant speed spells, card draw, counter spells and resilient finishers to work, it has to be blue that contributes to it. Because no other color gets counter spells and card draw (and significantly worse resilient evasive finishers).
Why do I even have to explain this. Blue plays less aggressive creatures, because it has a wider array of spells that it wants to cover, and most of those are exclusive to Blue and are typical for control decks. What does your U section look like if you say this isn't true. Are you playing Welkin Tern, Vaporkin, Cloudskate and Cloud Spirit over counter spells, draw spells and finishers?
I suppose if you want to play more spells than creatures in blue, you could, but I don't. The average pauper cubes on cubetutor contain more creatures than spells. I also don't particularly care how many typically-built and/or badly-built pauper cubes are floating around out there. Yes, red would love to play with welkin tern, and you can. Aggro decks with blue can be amazing. You can look at the "decks" section of my cubetutor for a couple examples.
It IS NOT SIMPLY A FACT THAT ALL FOUR OTHER COLORS SUPPORT AGGRO MORE THAN CONTROL. Is it more common to look at a pauper cube and see a nonblue color support aggro more than control? Yes. But stating that it's A FACT is severely limiting your options as the designer of your own format. There is HUGE support for control in black and red, all you have to do is play it. Most obviously, the tons of removal make these colors amazing for control, but furthermore, they don't lack for reliable card advantage or bomby finishers either. IMO black is by FAR a better control color than blue in pauper cube. The only area where blue is better than black is blue has more card draw spells. Blue also has counterspells, but pauper cubes have gotten/can be much faster now than they were a few years ago and counterspells aren't that great. Black still has great card advantage spells, and on top of that has removal and lifegain that blue lacks almost completely. And then there's green, which doesn't support control in a traditional sense, but has tons of support for ramp as an archetype, which is much closer to control than aggro.
On the topic of counterspells, interacting with your opponent's board, and especially surviving against aggro, are way more important than being able to have counterspell backup on turn 7 or whatever. Ironically, I find counterspells are BETTER in aggressive tempo-oriented decks than in control. Memory lapse is savage when you're faster than you're opponent. Also, many of blue's best counterspells are soft counterspells, which can become much worse or dead in the late game, but are super poweful in a fast deck. Additionally, saying counter spells are necessary for a successful control deck is simply not true.
All you need to win as control are 1) ways to interact with your opponent's board, 2) ways to generate card advantage, and 3) a resilient win condition. The ONLY one of these blue truly excels at is generating card advantage.
You talk about needing blue to support control exclusively for control to be represented in the metagame. You could also simply increase control support in black and red, (and to a lesser extent white, and possibly support ramp in green) and have a much healthier metagame than one where the majority of the control support is in ONE COLOR.
I'm sorry if the basic tenets of your pauper cube have been uprooted. I suspect you're just not adapting to the huge changes in the meta that the sets of recent have caused.
In the end, I don't really care what you do, although I do find the black-and-white-ness of your attitude saddening. What bothers me is when you talk about pauper cube as if there's only one "right" way to do things, which is patently false. The ideas I'm talking about are NOT weak, fringe strategies. Fast decks with blue are really ******* good. Control decks without blue can take down a draft easily. You are simply dismissing a lot of the creative possibility that can be designed into pauper cube out of hand. So at the very least don't present your opinions on this board as fact.
I was going through the evaluate everything thread and found the card Afterlife, and was wondering why people don't run it as it seems amazing (asides from it being an online only common, which some of you don't allow).
Edit: I guess if you compare Afterlife to the enchantment based removal (Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, Pacificsm), it doesn't seem all that great, but it does answer the creature permanently and at instant speed.
Maybe good with exile-matters? It's so far behind the rest of white removal though. Three mana gets you unconditional removal (Arrest and Oblivion Ring) in the sense that they kill what you want and don't leave something behind to impact the game (whether your opponent can deal with enchantments is relevant, but worth the risk, unlike Afterlife's token). Leaving your opponent with a relevant creature is not going to outweigh the instant speed or exile clause most of the time (not enough of a creature downgrade). I would call it testable if the token didn't have flying though
Manland effects are clearly uncommon or better, especiallyMishra's Factory. It's a free, colorless, uncounterable, protection from sorceries 2/2 with upkeep 1 that also happens to tap for mana. Oh, and it's a 3/3 on defense. You know many other creatures like that in pauper? You see some possible differences between Factory and Khalni Garden?
Stalking Stones should be downgraded before Factory. Not as good, but still plenty good for pauper. That's my magic 8-ball prediction for the next set
Strip mine doesn't really have any good targets in Pauper. So it would only randomly hoze the guy who kept a 2 or 3 land hand and didn't draw out of it. Seems poor.
Factory of course is bonkers and would probably be find to include.
Btw, Maze of Ith is a C1 as well.
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I've had torch fiend and manic vandal in my cube forever. I've come close to cutting them many times to add cooler cards because they usually sit in sideboards. However, I can remember maindecked manic vandal doing serious work in the past. I mostly don't want to cut them because I think there should be SOME artifact removal outside of green.
And also of course if you prefer some other artifact removal to these it would be good to mention why. I can definitely see arguments for aftershock, ingot chewer, defiant ogre, wild celebrants, unforge, turn to slag, stuff.
I really wish we could get some clearly maindeckable card with artifact removal tacked on. Like "R instant, choose one: shock or crush"
This post isn't substantive enough for its own thread is it?
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- It has a reasonable body for its mana cost
- You can play it onto an empty board without wasting its ability, unlike Manic Vandals and all the other etb creatures
- It fits into reds primary archetype (aggro) much better than the others
Despite this, I find that I only maindeck Torch Fiend when I am lacking other 2 drops, which is rarely a problem. I hesitate to cut Torch Fiend because artifact removal is essential, but it is definitely the weakest two drop that I currently run in red.
The equipment destroyers are interesting, but overall too narrow and/or expensive.
Aftershock is versatile enough to be maindecked, and has the added value of being more of an aggro card than a control one (for the lifeloss).
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I had another question for red, though. Do y'all think Martyr of Ashes has value as one of the rare (pun intended) sweepers at common? Are there any others you would put ahead of it? Aside from all the dividable burn spells, I mean
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I like Manic Vandal it is fairly rare for him to not have a target even if there isn't one on turn 1. However it is not a card for aggro decks, where Torch Fiend is much better. I cut Keldon Vandals because Manic Vandal was already filling his role of creature body + artifact removal. I am trying out Defiant Ogre as a big smashy 6-drop in red, but so far haven't tested him.
Martyr of Ashes is good. It fills a niche for a big early sweep controlling Red decks. But red isn't exactly lacking board clear with it's dividable damage. If Red for you is all aggro, then it's definitely cutable. In saying that there isn't any good replacements for Martyr of Ashes as it's simply the best there is for it's effect.
Edit: Also curious as to what you all think of Phantasmal Bear. I think that the vast majority of things that target it would kill it anyways, but it is extremely vulnerable to removal.
Or are you interested in a Fiora flavor cube? Conspire and win!
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I think Mold Shambler is not so great. Especially at sub-360 cards. As for Phantasmal Bear, it's not the kind of creature I want in blue. I'd rather exhaust the list of two-mana flyers before I get to the bear
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Wow, you are stating this like this it's obviously empirically true. You are so flat out wrong.
If you draft 3 packs of 15 cards each with 8 players, you have TONS of room to support aggro in blue and lots of other much weirder stuff too.
And the idea that heavily supporting control is only possible in blue is also just not even close to true.
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Fissure is way better than Aftershock. Afterschock is just bad.
Martyr of Ashes never worked for me since red tends to be a supportcolor (few red cards in hand) and you dont want to kill your own board neither.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I know Red needs the cheap removal, and the rattlesnake effect of Torch Fiend is decent as a way to cash out after you've done some damage. I think Fiend and Vandal are both essential in pauper because they represent the two sides of tempo and card advantage.
I do agree with Wild Celebrants over Defiant Ogre (but if you wouldn't play the Ogre, why would you play Mold Shambler???)
Aftershock is as close as we have to a common Vindicate. Fissure hits less targets and costs more. I'd be interested to see the reasoning on that one
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
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T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I love Fissure in Midrange, but in my attempts to have a more Aggro supportive Cube, I need Aftershock instead.
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I suppose if you want to play more spells than creatures in blue, you could, but I don't. The average pauper cubes on cubetutor contain more creatures than spells. I also don't particularly care how many typically-built and/or badly-built pauper cubes are floating around out there. Yes, red would love to play with welkin tern, and you can. Aggro decks with blue can be amazing. You can look at the "decks" section of my cubetutor for a couple examples.
It IS NOT SIMPLY A FACT THAT ALL FOUR OTHER COLORS SUPPORT AGGRO MORE THAN CONTROL. Is it more common to look at a pauper cube and see a nonblue color support aggro more than control? Yes. But stating that it's A FACT is severely limiting your options as the designer of your own format. There is HUGE support for control in black and red, all you have to do is play it. Most obviously, the tons of removal make these colors amazing for control, but furthermore, they don't lack for reliable card advantage or bomby finishers either. IMO black is by FAR a better control color than blue in pauper cube. The only area where blue is better than black is blue has more card draw spells. Blue also has counterspells, but pauper cubes have gotten/can be much faster now than they were a few years ago and counterspells aren't that great. Black still has great card advantage spells, and on top of that has removal and lifegain that blue lacks almost completely. And then there's green, which doesn't support control in a traditional sense, but has tons of support for ramp as an archetype, which is much closer to control than aggro.
On the topic of counterspells, interacting with your opponent's board, and especially surviving against aggro, are way more important than being able to have counterspell backup on turn 7 or whatever. Ironically, I find counterspells are BETTER in aggressive tempo-oriented decks than in control. Memory lapse is savage when you're faster than you're opponent. Also, many of blue's best counterspells are soft counterspells, which can become much worse or dead in the late game, but are super poweful in a fast deck. Additionally, saying counter spells are necessary for a successful control deck is simply not true.
All you need to win as control are 1) ways to interact with your opponent's board, 2) ways to generate card advantage, and 3) a resilient win condition. The ONLY one of these blue truly excels at is generating card advantage.
You talk about needing blue to support control exclusively for control to be represented in the metagame. You could also simply increase control support in black and red, (and to a lesser extent white, and possibly support ramp in green) and have a much healthier metagame than one where the majority of the control support is in ONE COLOR.
I'm sorry if the basic tenets of your pauper cube have been uprooted. I suspect you're just not adapting to the huge changes in the meta that the sets of recent have caused.
In the end, I don't really care what you do, although I do find the black-and-white-ness of your attitude saddening. What bothers me is when you talk about pauper cube as if there's only one "right" way to do things, which is patently false. The ideas I'm talking about are NOT weak, fringe strategies. Fast decks with blue are really ******* good. Control decks without blue can take down a draft easily. You are simply dismissing a lot of the creative possibility that can be designed into pauper cube out of hand. So at the very least don't present your opinions on this board as fact.
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
Click here and check out my Formerly Pauper Cube.
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
Do you have a current cube list viewable somewhere?
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
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After all its just opinions.
But yeah, blues CC2 2/1 flyer are pretty essential for a blue aggro approach.
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Edit: I guess if you compare Afterlife to the enchantment based removal (Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, Pacificsm), it doesn't seem all that great, but it does answer the creature permanently and at instant speed.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
Click here and check out my Formerly Pauper Cube.
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
Stalking Stones should be downgraded before Factory. Not as good, but still plenty good for pauper. That's my magic 8-ball prediction for the next set
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
Factory of course is bonkers and would probably be find to include.
Btw, Maze of Ith is a C1 as well.