MTG Salvation

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

So what do you guys think about graveyard and artifact hate? How much do you guys play, and what sort? I have found the initial build of my new cube to be a little light on both.

For artifact hate, I think I'll just re-add Manic Vandal and call it a day.

The graveyard is a five color theme in my cube, so I think I need more easily available grave hate. I'm playing Phyrexian Furnace and Vessel of Endless Rest, and I think I'm going to add Bojuka Bog and Relic of Progenitus. I think Tormod's Crypt is just a little too useless on its own. Maybe I should acquire an Ashiok, Dream Render instead of playing Bojuka Bog.

This is totally going to depend on the types of artifacts you run and how important it is to have an answer. I run 13 artifact hate cards in my 400-card peasant cube, but I also run Loxodon Warhammer, Sol Ring, Skullclamp, and other artifacts that are fairly strong. Some people choose to ban cards for power reasons, I prefer to pack in answers. Of the 11 answers I run, 11 come on a body, and Abrade offers an alternate mode, while Beast Within answers any permanent.

Apparently, I am only running 3 grave-hate cards (definitely feels light to me, now that I think of it), and you'd want a lot more if you have a heavy graveyard theme.

With both categories, I like the cards to do more than just hate. They provide some other mode or option or at least a body.

Here's what I run:

Ainok Survivalist is the last morph after I stripped out the rest, and it'll be leaving soon, once I get a copy of Thrashing Brontodon.
Mardu Woe-Reaper and Dryad Militantare both aggressive 2/1s for 1 mana, and Woe-Reaper is supported by 21 other Warriors (including one that makes Warrior tokens).

EDIT - Forgot about Beast Within.

I never felt that graveyard strategies are oppressive in peasant, if at all the opposite is the case.

Reanimator is a fragile deck that is hard to draft and the fatties we have are hardly unbeatable. Any half-decent aggro deck will run over your reanimator deck before you even have a chance to attack with your cool turn three 7/7 Plated Crusher more than twice.

The typcial graveyard value deck isn't better. It's very slow and grindy, the game needs to go on long enough to give you an actual benefit from casting slow cards like Baloth Null or Grizzly Fate.

Random graveyard value cards like Gryff's Boon, Deep Analysis or Firebolt would become completely unplayable if every second deck could easily remove them from the yard.

I'm happy when I get cards like Striped Riverwinder or Mother Bear to get more support for graveyard strategies, I certainly won't add cards that make these strategies even less viable than they are.

For a while I really tried to add enough artifact hate to make a card like Loxodon Warhammer playable in my cube, but ultimately this can't work out. Some colors like blue and especially black don't have any artifact hate at all, other colors, like red, mostly have sideboard only cards. Even if you add all the narrow red cards it won't ever be enough, all you do is clutter your red section with cards that never get played in game 1.

Of course there is nothing wrong with playing Loxodon Warhammer, but if you believe you can add enough cards to give every player a fair chance to remove it when it gets played you deceive yourself. And the same is true for graveyard strategies. If you really believe that graveyard cards are too op you should remove the cards in question, but adding enough graveyard hate to give every player a fair chance to remove problematic cards just isn't possible.

Binary removal is just not really where I want to be in a value driven format, so I just don't include artifacts/enchantments that can't be dealt with or mitigated through creature interaction. Even if you include "enough" removal for something like Warhammer most people aren't going to be playing more than 1 way to remove it. There's probably a 30% chance you don't draw your removal for it even if you play it. Seems way easier to me to just not play problematic artifacts/enchantments, which also opens up slots that were used for their removal.

I can't imagine gravehate being remotely needed in peasant. Graveyard based decks have enough other major weaknesses that taking up slots to specifically hurt them doesn't really make sense to me.

I kind of like sideboard-only cards and the role they play in a draft. Choosing between a disenchant for the sideboard or a middling main-deck card is interesting.

It’s hardly as if it is hard to get to 23 playables anyways...

Quote from Poster formerly known as Phitt77 »

For a while I really tried to add enough artifact hate to make a card like Loxodon Warhammer playable in my cube, but ultimately this can't work out. Some colors like blue and especially black don't have any artifact hate at all, other colors, like red, mostly have sideboard only cards. Even if you add all the narrow red cards it won't ever be enough, all you do is clutter your red section with cards that never get played in game 1.

Of course there is nothing wrong with playing Loxodon Warhammer, but if you believe you can add enough cards to give every player a fair chance to remove it when it gets played you deceive yourself. And the same is true for graveyard strategies. If you really believe that graveyard cards are too op you should remove the cards in question, but adding enough graveyard hate to give every player a fair chance to remove problematic cards just isn't possible.

Quote from Purplemurasaki »

Binary removal is just not really where I want to be in a value driven format, so I just don't include artifacts/enchantments that can't be dealt with or mitigated through creature interaction. Even if you include "enough" removal for something like Warhammer most people aren't going to be playing more than 1 way to remove it. There's probably a 30% chance you don't draw your removal for it even if you play it. Seems way easier to me to just not play problematic artifacts/enchantments, which also opens up slots that were used for their removal.

Artifact removal is only one part of dealing with things like Loxodon Warhammer, Skullclamp, etc, and each color has answers. How powerful is equipment if creatures can't survive long enough to carry it? I have instants that can exile, burn, or destroy the creature in response to equipping. I can counter the equipment or the creature they plan to equip. I can remove creatures in the normal course of the game (like everyone should), so they have limited options - dropping an equipment on an empty board isn't great. I can Hijack it for a turn to use it for myself. Nice equipment you have there, have a Beast instead. There's even stuff like Loyal Sentry and Dead-Iron Sledge that can take out the Warhammered creature upon blocking and before damage, essentially rendering it useless. Sure, you have to answer the threat, but there's more than one way to do so.

To deal with a Warhammer without artifact removal you basically need to have instant speed removal until your opponent is dead (Dead-Iron Sledge and Loyal Sentry are both incredibly niche). For a lot of decks that just isn't an option. And if I'm killing a creature targeted with Skullclamp I'm trying to fight someone with Skullclamp through CA, which is a losing battle.

Even if you have the quantity of instant speed removal to attempt to deal with equipment, you're still losing to other non-creatures. Sol Ring's issues have been mentioned enough in the past, but Curse of Predation/Disturbance and Shrine of Burning Rage/Loyal Legions either need a mind boggling amount of creature removal or can't be dealt with through creature removal at all.

Playing more creature removal than necessary to deal with creature threats reduces the amount of synergy within one's own deck, so it's not something that should be preferred. But when you need a critical mass to deal with Warhammer like non-creatures, you have little choice in the matter.

You can definitely have interactive games with things like Warhammer, but I find it hard to believe the majority of games are benefited by having a Warhammer played. I would say this is probably true of any card that when played at parity creates a "Oh, I lose" reaction, which Warhammer definitely falls into.

I'm with Purplemurasaki, the whole reason why cards like Warhammer, Skullclamp, Curses and some other cards are considered op is that you can not deal with them without removing them completely. Loxodon Warhammer is not Armadillo Cloak. Sacrificing your own resources just to delay the inevitable is a losing battle. Sure, they're not unbeatable and sometimes disabling these cards for a turn or two is enough to win, but after that you're bound to lose.

Stonecloaker is my only grave hate, I tried others but they were just too useless. I try to make the graveyard play too slow so that you can run over graveyard decks with aggro but if aggro fails then the graveyard decks set up some kind of recursion lock.

Goblin Cratermaker and Abrade and thrashing brontodon for artifact hate. Plus the generic white removal

I'm somewhere near the same page as FunkyDragon when it comes to op equipment like Warhammer and Clamp. For Warhammer specifically, it's really easy to ride it to victory in a lot of normal situations. Your opponent's on UB and didn't counter it? Well, you're probably winning that game. Against nearly every other color combo, though, there's likely an answer somewhere in your opponent's deck for the Warhammer itself. Granted they have to draw it and cast it, but the point stands. I've seen Warhammer be the sole reason a player won and I've seen it do actual nothing from being answered immediately.

For something like Clamp, a lot has to go right for it to bury your opponent in card advantage. As someone who has both peasant and powered cubes, I've found that in peasant Clamp is good but mostly does what I think it was intended to do. It attaches to a creature, and then nets some profit when that creature dies. It's not typically 1, Sac a creature: Draw two cards. We don't have the Bitterblossom or Rabblemaster variants to really break it. Don't get me wrong, I've certainly seen Clamp be disgusting and, again, be the sole reason a player was able to win. Sometimes you're at parity or even behind, play Clamp, get rid of a couple useless X/1s and suddenly you've got a grip full of cards and you're back in the game. That's not typically the normal line, though.

I'm not trying to down play how powerful these two cards are or say that anyone is somehow wrong for choosing not to include them for power reasons. They can both be insane. But they don't win every game they hit the board, and they're not unanswerable. I don't think you need to go over the top with answers just for these cards, but every color that can should have answers available in the draft. And for me specifically, I like having 'bombs' in the draft. I think it adds to the fun of the overall draft and play experience.

When your peasant cube has an aristocrats theme in BW, you don't want Skullclamp in your cube. It's just too good with Hidden Stockpile or Reassembling Skeleton, or even Pawn of Ulamog or Oketra's Monument. If Skullclamp feels like a fair card in your cube, it's fine to run it in my opinion.

Quote from OptBoy »

When your peasant cube has an aristocrats theme in BW, you don't want Skullclamp in your cube. It's just too good with Hidden Stockpile or Reassembling Skeleton, or even Pawn of Ulamog or Oketra's Monument. If Skullclamp feels like a fair card in your cube, it's fine to run it in my opinion.

I actually hadn't really considered Hidden Stockpile for my list before. Sorry if I divert the conversation for a minute, but what are people's experiences with it? How good is it? How much value do you typically get from it?

Quote from FunkyDragon »

Quote from OptBoy »

When your peasant cube has an aristocrats theme in BW, you don't want Skullclamp in your cube. It's just too good with Hidden Stockpile or Reassembling Skeleton, or even Pawn of Ulamog or Oketra's Monument. If Skullclamp feels like a fair card in your cube, it's fine to run it in my opinion.

I actually hadn't really considered Hidden Stockpile for my list before. Sorry if I divert the conversation for a minute, but what are people's experiences with it? How good is it? How much value do you typically get from it?

I've liked it in my main cube. Revolt is not hard to trigger. It plays a bit like Ophiomancer as a gradual value machine. You're never going to get a token army out of it, but it sits there generating value and chump-blocks, and seldom gets removed. It's a totally solid aristocrats engine. The only problem with it is that it's a guild card.

The Orzhov guild slot gets competative quickly if you want to support Aristocrats. There are many good cards, including Lingering Souls, Zealous Persecution Mortify, Cartel Aristocrat, Maw of the Obzedat and Cruel Celebrant. I like to run Hidden Stockpile as one of my Orzhov guild cards, mainly because of good signaling and its emphasis on creating a grindy engine. Where Maw of the Obzedat is often a finisher in a go wide token strategy, Hidden Stockpile raises the value of grindier strategies, like those involving cards like Thoughtpicker Witch.

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

I've liked it in my main cube. Revolt is not hard to trigger. It plays a bit like Ophiomancer as a gradual value machine. You're never going to get a token army out of it, but it sits there generating value and chump-blocks, and seldom gets removed. It's a totally solid aristocrats engine. The only problem with it is that it's a guild card.

I do like Ophiomancer, though a large part of that is thanks to the deathtouch on its tokens. At the same time, I guess Stockpile can actually have more than one token on the field, and it has that sac ability.

Quote from OptBoy »

The Orzhov guild slot gets competative quickly if you want to support Aristocrats. There are many good cards, including Lingering Souls, Zealous Persecution Mortify, Cartel Aristocrat, Maw of the Obzedat and Cruel Celebrant. I like to run Hidden Stockpile as one of my Orzhov guild cards, mainly because of good signaling and its emphasis on creating a grindy engine. Where Maw of the Obzedat is often a finisher in a go wide token strategy, Hidden Stockpile raises the value of grindier strategies, like those involving cards like Thoughtpicker Witch.

I run Lingering Souls as a white card with added advantage for the Orzhov player, and I have six Orzhov guild slots, but I've never been excited by seeing Mortify in a pack (good utility, but hardly exciting). I think I may give Hidden Stockpile a try.

What have people's impressions been of the new mulligan (draw 7 put x back)? Is it better than the Vancouver mulligan? Does it have a significant impact on gameplay? I've been forgetting it exists, so I haven't been using it.

London mulligan in cube? I think it is clearly better than the Vancouver mull for the enjoyment of your players. Less mulls to 5, less nongames, so nothing but positives.

I haven't had a chance to play in a bit (as in, at all - geographical limitations) but in theory, the London mulligan ought to be far superior since you have a considerably higher chance of getting cards you absolutely need instead of diminishing returns with each attempt. The card disadvantage ought to be more than enough to continue to balance it out.

London mulligan all the way. Even more so since you just play for fun when you play cube. It's the first mulligan that truly works for a casual format from my pov, all the mulligans before led to frustration occassionally. It's definitely way better than the Vancouver mulligan.

I haven't told my playgroup about the London mulligan. They adjust slowly to change, and it seems like the one where you scry X (Vancouver?) just happened. I don't want to change mulligan rules every time I play.

I now do first mulligan free, every subsequent is london. London is obviously the best official solution for draft and casual, and both of those formats could probably benefit from one freebie to shield yourself from the inevitable 1 land hands.

I'm not under the impression that the vancouver mulligan did much besides make people "feel" like it worked. I took data from about 50 games during guilds and the mulling player won at just over 30%, which is about what mtggoldfish said during older formats. Annoyingly. wizards cut off access to such rich data by the time vancouver mulligans were introduced and I suspect it was partly to shield themselves from judgment on the matter. I.e. If the players feel like it works, then it doesn't matter if it actually does.

I always allow one free mulligan. Usually two seven card hands is enough to get something playable.

We've done free mulligans at the kitchen table since I started playing Magic in the 90s. I've never been a super competitive player, so to be honest it never even crossed my mind that it was an option to free mulligan over and over to the perfect hand. Don't like your opener? Take a mulligan and try again. So when we started cubing, it was just the natural thing to do. We were literally just sitting at a kitchen table, drinking beers and playing Magic with friends. Actual nothing at stake, so why not free mulligan?

Sidebar and fun fact: When I say I'm not a competitive player and these types of strategies don't cross my mind, I truly mean it. I once got a little salty during a game of Clue when I guessed the envelope contents and found out one of the other players had lied to me earlier in the game. I now realize that's just how you play Clue, but it never once occurred to me that I should be guessing the contents in a way that would give my opponents a false idea.

I will note that over the years of meeting players and inviting them over to cube, we have had a couple who would draft with free mulligans in mind and then take advantage of it to find that Sol Ring or Lotus opener. Those people don't get invited back. At least one of their name's has now become slang for anyone who ends up actually needing to take multiple mulligans for whatever reason.

One last note about free mulligans. This isn't digital where you can just evaluate, click to mull, evaluate, click to mull, over and over until you find the perfect hand. A mulligan means you're shuffling up and dealing a new hand. If you're taking a second mulligan because both openers so far saw no lands, you might even be pile shuffling. These things take time and to be fair, they're annoying. It sucks to sit and shuffle over and over again. Plenty of times people in our group have taken a couple of mulls then just said, screw it, I'll keep, I don't wanna shuffle again.

I haven't tried the London mulligan yet, but my group is backwards and hasn't even abandonned the Partial Paris mulligan yet - we never even embraced the Vancouver. Personally, I'd be fine with London, but it's really hard to convince some people to change.

Quote from calibretto »

When I say I'm not a competitive player and these types of strategies don't cross my mind, I truly mean it. I once got a little salty during a game of Clue when I guessed the envelope contents and found out one of the other players had lied to me earlier in the game. I now realize that's just how you play Clue, but it never once occurred to me that I should be guessing the contents in a way that would give my opponents a false idea.

Except lying isn't playing Clue competitively, it's straight up cheating. And that's certainly not how anyone plays who ever wants to play with me again - I can't stand cheaters, in any game. You have fun, follow the rules, and take your wins alongside your losses. It's not a win if you cheated.

Quote from FunkyDragon »

Except lying isn't playing Clue competitively, it's straight up cheating. And that's certainly not how anyone plays who ever wants to play with me again - I can't stand cheaters, in any game. You have fun, follow the rules, and take your wins alongside your losses. It's not a win if you cheated.

Not to go too far into a tangent, but lying isn't necessarily cheating in Clue. If you say "I'm holding four weapons" when you're holding two weapons, it's not cheating, it's just dishonest. I wouldn't ever play like that, but it's not technically cheating as far as I know. Now if you say you can't prove somebody wrong when you can, that's straight cheating and breaks the game, since that information is the entire basis of Clue.

Personally, I'll keep any hand that isn't just unplayable. My sister mulligans aggressively, so infinite free mulligans aren't really an option, since she really would mull four times, and still not be quite satisfied. Nevertheless, I've never felt that one free mulligan is a problem, even if it does slightly favor the more aggressive mulligan player over the "**** it, it'll be fine" player.

Quote from FunkyDragon »

Except lying isn't playing Clue competitively, it's straight up cheating. And that's certainly not how anyone plays who ever wants to play with me again - I can't stand cheaters, in any game. You have fun, follow the rules, and take your wins alongside your losses. It's not a win if you cheated.

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

Not to go too far into a tangent, but lying isn't necessarily cheating in Clue. If you say "I'm holding four weapons" when you're holding two weapons, it's not cheating, it's just dishonest. I wouldn't ever play like that, but it's not technically cheating as far as I know. Now if you say you can't prove somebody wrong when you can, that's straight cheating and breaks the game, since that information is the entire basis of Clue.

To clear up this sidebar tangent, I should be more specific. The person didn't straight up lie, but they did play and make their own guesses in such a way that it seemed to me like they must have a weapon that they actually did not have. So in my notes, I jotted down that the murder weapon couldn't possibly be this weapon because clearly this person was holding it. When the envelope was revealed it ended up being the very weapon I just knew it couldn't be. This then became me going, 'WTF, you made it seem like you had that weapon!" Which then resulted in others explaining to me that it's ok to mislead the rest of the players with your guesses so as to throw them off. Apparently that's the point of Clue. But I don't like being misled and I'm not really good at or enjoy playing games that require me to purposely mislead others. It's probably why I'm terrible at poker. I guess what we learned here is that they bluffed and I considered it a flat out lie.

To bring us back around to the topic at hand, I'd compare this type of play to something like the pen trick or LSV picking up the Vampire token to bluff a block before he casts Settle. It's harmless and it's a perfectly legal play, but it's just not how I play or how I enjoy being played against. I'm the player who informs my opponent that there's 4 of something when they only pull 3 with Surgical Extraction. It doesn't seem fair (or fun) to me to try to get one over on my opponent. Honestly, it just doesn't come to mind to play this way, so taking advantage of free mulligans just isn't something that I would ever do.