MTG Salvation

Quote from wtwlf123 »

Not sure this is how I want to spend 4 mana in the cube.

I feel like I could just sig this and quote it every spoiler season. Jesus Christ with the 4 drops Wizards. We get it. You want big dumb things to happen on turn 4. Problem is, we already have like a billion of those.

Aetherwind Basker
4GGG
Creature - Lizard
7/7
Trample

Whenever Aetherwind Basker enters the battlefield or attacks, you get E (an energy counter) for each creature you control.

Pay E: Aetherwind Basker gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

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Well for starters it has the keyword far too many green fatties are missing: Trample. Is that enough? At the very least it's can attack as a 9/9 the first time it attacks, possibly much more. On the other hand, it's still just a beatstick with no utility.

Industrial Tower
Land
T: Add ◊ to your mana pool.

T, pay 1 life: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only when you control an artifact.

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I'm almost certainly playing this in my cube, but that's because I'm supporting colorless for TKS, Reality Smasher, and Eldrazi Displacer, and I'm also pushing an artifact deck. That means my judgement is a little skewed at this point. Thoughts for more general cubes?

I like that this exists to further push the colorless stuff. What colorless really needs is more multicolored lands that also generate colorless, and this does a decent job of that.

Revisited this strategy in my cube for the first time this week, and I'm incredibly happy with the results.

I cut stax a few years ago after it proved to be too polarizing. Either it worked, and your opponents had absolutely no lands or resources, or it didn't work and you just got run over and lost to any decent permanent. There was very little middle ground, and importantly for us it rarely generated fun game states. I've got legacy for the intricate resource battles. I cube for fun, and this wasn't doing it. One too many opponents gave me the sad puppy dog face and you could tell they were regretting their choice to spend their evening doing this.

That said, black has gotten some great new card advantage tools since I last cut it. All at higher CMCs than we used to play in this strategy. My optimal decks back in the day topped out at 4, with Braids/Smokestack/maybe one more. Everything else was hyper low to the ground. You absolutely wanted Crucible or Loam and it was all about resource denial. This time I brought Smokestack back, along with some other card advantage tools, but Crucible and Loam are currently out of the cube. The stax deck, therefore, is just a black centered card advantage deck.

Last night I built this



Looking at it after the draft, I was very disappointed. I felt it hadn't come together at all and I was going to get crushed. Instead, I went 9-2 in games, 4-1 in matches. Both of my game losses were to a ramp deck that played turn 2 Monolith into turn 3 Titan. Ramp is definitely going to be this strategy's worst matchup anyway, so I'm not too surprised about that. Beyond that, though, the deck was beautiful. I just out card advantaged my opponents. I regularly bumped Smokestack up to 2 or 3 counters, which wasn't the case nearly as often with the old setup. Instead of focusing on recurring things (though I did have bloodghast), I just drew more cards and dealt with losing permanents. I also got very lucky that I didn't have to face too many giant creatures, as this deck doesn't have nearly enough creature removal spells. Icy Manipulator did beat a Griselbrand though, that was cool.

I think this deck could be really sweet with more green in it (Meren of Clan Nel Toth?) or honestly with any of the other colors as there are fun tools to blend with it. Fundamentally, though, I'm just happy it was able to be a grindy resource control deck that was always happy to draw Braids or Smokestack. It was definitely a different way to try and build it, but I had fun, the deck did well, and my opponents weren't miserable.

Quote from steve_man »

Anyways, I feel like Magus of the (Insert Sorcery Here) will eventually be a complete cycle.

Seems like a relatively safe bet, since we already have the Artifact, Enchantment, and Land cycles. That said, while Magus of the Order is a card I'd love to see but don't expect, the white and blue ones are really rough. Magus of the Cataclysm is probably the best bet, but ugh, what a terrible name. And blue's options are all either terrible or OP.

But I still love all of the Magi as they're super fun callouts to old cards I love.

Quote from noshadowkick »

I'll ... replace all 5th guild lands (... filter, ...) with painlands.

Don't forget Filter lands tap for colorless too.

Your first two questions really require a full spoiler to answer more completely, but I've been thinking about your 3rd for a while.

• Boreal Druid replaces one of the weaker mana dorks. Arbor Elf or Avacyn's Pilgrim or whatnot.
• I play a few more lands with activated abilities that are relevant that also tap for colorless
• Swap some of the mana rocks that do any color for colorless+upside. I'll probably keep Coalition Relic, but it's possible Chromatic Lantern or Guilded Lotus become Worn Powerstone or Thran Dynamo. I can also turn Coldsteel Heart into Guardian Idol. To some extent this depends on whether the cards that want <> are the kind of cards that a mana rock deck would really want.

EDIT: A short list of lands that might be worth playing

Wasteland, Strip Mine, Volrath's Stronghold, Kessig Wolf Run, Gavony Township, Grand Coliseum, Mutavault, Mishra's Factory, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Rishadan Port, Academy Ruins, Tectonic Edge, Dust Bowl, Slayers' Stronghold, Ghost Quarter, Desolate Lighthouse, Desert, Blinkmoth Nexus, Moorland Haunt, Quicksand, Cavern of Souls, Riptide Laboratory, Phyrexian Tower, Contested War Zone, and any Filter Lands or Pain Lands.

We actually cut Hypnotic Specter. I found that while I remember him being insane, he's just not up there anymore. By the time he's connecting they either don't have much for him to eat or they can probably deal with him. 2/2 fliers for 3 just don't cut it. They don't get in for damage if there's a reason to stop them.

Sure, if I could always ritual him out, I would, but that's not reality.

We still love messenger in my 465, but I'll admit part of that is because I play the second set of fetches and so our fixing is good enough that two color decks can reasonably play him.

I'm with wtwlf here. I haven't played 17 lands in what I would consider an aggro deck in a long time.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

It's one of the few red decks we don't play a lot of. Lots of red aggro, some red control, Wildfire.dec, the artifact.dec, and red is used in tokens, reanimator, and a handful of other decks. But not a ton of R midrange/goodstuff decks, where Shaman is great.

Shaman might very well come back in the future; I like it quite a bit. But I couldn't see playing Abbot, because when we were testing it, it was just worse than Shaman, and we benched Shaman.

That's weird, because red right now in my cube is a full tilt aggro color with some splash token makers. We're not playing the artifact subtheme or wildfire subtheme at the moment (though I'm sure they'll be back someday, I just like to mix things up. They've both been so good in aggro. Prowess on Abbot has been very similar to Guttersnipe, where the fact that your guy gets a bonus from you casting burn spells makes it less painful to spend your burn clearing blockers, since you get some of that damage back when they connect.

I'm perfectly content to play both of them on curve at 2 mana if they're the only 2 drop I have in hand, with almost no hesitation (the only real downside is that they'll flip something tutorable like equipment in a W/R aggro deck with stoneforge, and it'll be gone forever). I love a good on curve body that can beat down, but when drawn late provides card advantage, which both of these guys do. Most of red's other card advantage options are pretty crappy in the opening hand or on turn 2, so being able to play cards that provide CA without cluttering your deck up with things you don't want to draw early is a big plus for aggro.

EDIT: We actually benched shaman for a short period because people weren't playing him. They were treating him like his primary mode was morph, and undervaluing him compared to the other big mana options in the red deck, especially since they didnt' want to play more than 3 or 4 cards that cost more than 2 sometimes. It wasn't until someone convinced me to just start casting him as a 2 drop and let his morph ability be the bonus, instead of the other way around, that I really started to like him.

Good writeup. Some responses based on testing on my side.

Abbot of Keral Keep - I know you don't support mono red in your cube, so maybe we have different experiences, but our testing results with both this and Ire Shaman have been insane. They're both great on curve two drops that you can play but when you draw them late game they're card advantage spells. I really can't think of that many other cards in red that do that, and it's a role red sorely needs.

I think saying "it can also be played in a pinch as a 2-drop to fill the curve if you have to" misunderstands the power of this creature, and the Shaman you're not playing either.

Exquisite Firecraft - My only issue with your analysis here is that you call it a 3 mana 4 damage spell with no drawback, and therefore you evaluate it ahead of Char. This is obviously an incredibly subjective opinion, but to me being a sorcery is a drawback. I'm willing to trade 2 damage to myself for instant speed and a splashable mana cost.

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy - So far we've been super disappointing with him in testing. When you want him to stay a looter, he flips, and . . . so far we haven't ever really wanted him to flip. He's just super underwhelming as a walker.

I love the ability to play a looter in a control deck and then flip him before wrathing, but I'm just not as in love with him after actual play as I was when reading his card originally. I'm willing to play a 2 mana looter, but I'm honestly not convinced at this point that flipping into a super mediocre planeswalker is better than having more than 0 power. Looter il-Kor is definitely better than him because of the evasion and damage, but honestly I think Merfolk Looter might be close, because he can attack and block but also is able to stick around to be a looter for a graveyard deck, which Jace can't do. I definitely rank Cryptologist ahead of him too.

Languish - I'm surprised you have this ranked so highly. I'm not even a little bit sold on it being necessary. Damnation and Deluge are easily the top 2, but I'm not convinced this is better than BSZ or Decree, just has different upsides and downsides.

Quote from Zetsu_Sensei »

As a draw spell that doesn't provide card advantage, I highly prefer Faithless Loothing because you can always flashback it and is less restrictive.

Worth noting that looting is actually card Disadvantage, while this is just card parity.

I've never really been tempted to play Glowrider, even a little. I don't think flying makes enough of a difference to put it in.

I agree with the "worth testing but not exciting" premise. That said, this is the kind of card where if he doesn't pan out, all it would take is one bonkers green 3 drop to make me want to play him. Right now there's a lot of utility 3 drops that he could fetch, which is nice, but utility 3 drop isn't where I really want to be at 6 mana on my curve.

The green version of Brimaz, Pack Rat, or Geist of Saint Traft though? Something that is a must-answer threat that ends games on it's own? That would make me want to include this, where it could either be toolbox or game game changer if your draft goes well. In some cubes Knight of the Reliquary could be close to that, but this guy tutoring up Knight really just seems worse than Primeval Titan I think.

Quote from asmallcat »

I'd explain to your drafters

Unfortunately most of these decks are coming from random people drafting my cube, not from people within my group, so I don't really have the opportunity to explain anything to them (or a good way to ask them why they made certain decisions without being rude, which is why I haven't said anything to them).

Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate the confirmation that I'm not going any crazier than I already am.

Quote from DSF »

I can't tell whether you're actually looking for input about whether the wonky decks are good, or just making a post that is trying to backhandedly explain what's wrong with the way some people draft in cube.

Clearly the focused decks are better, and I think you know that, especially if you've "been studying aggro for years".

I worried this would be the response. I promise, this isn't supposed to be a "pat myself on the back" post explaining how much better I am than other drafters. I've been studying it for a long time, and for the vast majority of that time I feel like I've been failing to get it. See some of my arguments with wtwlf regarding how many one drops were appropriate to include in my cube or a deck. Recently, though, I feel like I've been actually turning the corner, both in my own aggro deck construction and in the design of my cube to support the construction of those decks.

I feel like it's at least possible that I've discovered one way to build a good aggro deck, but that what I've been doing lately isn't the only way to have success, and since CubeTutor decks are just decklists without records or context I wasn't sure if maybe I was missing something while looking at them. My automatic assumption the first time I got an Isamaru+SunTitan list that showed up in my cube was "oh man, this deck sucks". Then I started seeing the exact same thing multiple times a week and started to wonder if maybe I was the one who was wrong.

Sometimes when you see something that seems dumb over and over and over, it's just you that's wrong. I don't think that's the case here but I figured I'd consult other cube designers before just throwing out the data that I'm looking at.