MTG Salvation

Hello all! Just got home from an excellently fun prerelease. I chose blue for my seed, and while I was quite happy with my deck, I would very much like some input on how others would have gone with it!

The pool:

This is the build that I eventually went with:

I was flirting with the idea of fitting Storm in somewhere, since all of the major kills (sand Mind's Desire) are available. Is Storm a viable option, or is there just not enough support with rates like the various draw 7s?

As for fitting in the less powerful strategies like cycling...I may tone down the power level in general, since I'm not concerned about making this a CUbe of All The Awesome. I have friends who have that kind of Cube covered!

I will have a more detailed reply to the rest later.

Thanks for the swift and excellent replies. As the thread progresses or dies down I will edit the original post to provide some summaries and the accumulated knowledge and such!

The general advice is noted! Make sure that the various cards I add are good on their own. Are there any commonly looked at themes for each color pairing?

As for the specifics...

• Dredge: Mostly I was just thinking of a lot of things that enjoy the graveyard, from flashback to reanimation targets to dredge so forth. Avoiding Threshold and the like.
• Reanimation: I did some looking, and yeah, I couldn't find many big value targets (Eldrazi, Pelakka Wurm, Trostani's Summoner). I'll likely focus on the value stuff.
• Cycling: The power issue is noted. I'm not trying to make this the most high powered CUbe ever, but I don't want to add crap. Is cycling a decent smoother mechanic for a draft format?
• Dedicated cards (like Burning Vengence): Is the value of being able to move into it early in a draft worth the occasional poor late pick? As long as you only stick with a couple, or are they just not ever really worth it.
• Tribal: So unless you focus the whole CUbe around it, I'm getting that tribal is usually better for incidental value, rather than a serious focus?
• SPELLS: Well then I know what my Izzet focus is gonna be.
• +1/+1: The main reason I was looking at some of the cards that care about these is because so many good cards just randomly use them, so the occasional card that cares, perhaps as a color pair focus, would be mostly value...right?
• Tokens: Makes sense. Obvious place is Selesnya.
• Non-blocks: Hmm...an interesting option for Boros.

I am looking to construct my own peasant Cube, and slowly gathering info and ideas. Are there any good resources covering various options for supporting specific archetypes and strategies? What are some good general rules?

Some of the potential themes I have been looking at are:

• Dregde
• Reanimator
• Cycling (Astral Slide, Lightning Rift, etc)
• Flashback (Burning Vengence, Secrets of the Dead)
• Tribal (various!)
• +1/+1 counters
• Spells matter (think Izzet)

I'm sure there are excellent options I am missing. How many cards do you need for something to feel supported? I'm thinking of starting with a 360 cube. Is it reasonable to try for a theme in each color pair? Advice, suggestions, and questions are all desired!

I am just looking to put together a peasant cube, so I'm doing my due diligence with all the research. When it comes to C/U lands that don't ETBT, how do the Lairs and the Tempest/Champions don't untap cycles work?

Wow, that's a lots of quality responses, thank you all!

That is a great amount of insight into the difference between pauper and peasant, I'm going to think on it for a while. The price doesn't bother me so much, as I still suspect my largest investment will be in the sleeves. But having more archetypes to draft around...right now I'm leaning towards peasant. I haven't found drafting M14 stimulating at all, and a large part of that is how bland I've felt it is, even with the archetypes it's tried to weave into the format. I wouldn't want my cube to feel the same way!

I think I'm going to keep looking at commons for a bit, to see if I can work in enough synergy to satisfy (maybe cut the cube to 360 to ensure they're all always draftable?), but my heart is moving towards uncommons.

I had initially thought to try for one subtheme per guild, but obviously that's a bit difficult to work. The only ones I've found so far that are potentially satisfying are W soldiers, and UW artifacts matter.

I'm interested in building my own Pauper cube, and I was wondering if there are any archetypes or strategies that are particularly supported at common, or if there are any cards that can for the backbone of something on their own (like Recurring Nightmare in a normal Cube), that I could easily overlook.

Additionally, given the size of my average Cubing group I'm looking to make this Cube 540 cards to support 12 players - is that asking too much of the common card pool? Would I be better served moving up to Peasant?

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I had forgotten the option to Sphinx's Revelation (oh how the mighty have fallen), but that is totally an option! For now I think R/X aggro is the way to go, with the mentioned mystery of Theros's lands. But I'm going to look into picking up some Revs and assorted goodies just incase those e come strong again.

I am looking to get into Standard. For the past few years I have primarily played limited, but I am not a fan of the M14 environment (or the value it offers), and I'm looking to finally getting around to building a deck for Standard. I don't have any archetype restrictions, but rather card restriction.

I do not want to build a deck that will be mostly invalidated or lose key pieces with the rotation in three months. For example, it is very likely that Theros will not contain a suitable replacement for Champion of the Parish Or Thragtusk or Restoration Angel. So I would like to avoid those cards and decks that hinge on them. This likely means that Aristocrats is likely out as well.

Right now I'm considering a RG or monored aggro angle, as much of the current power derives from DGR, and the cards that aren't can be more easily replaced.

But any suggestions you may have...please give them to me! Thanks!

I would expect to wait several weeks before the next vote goes up, at least. They are bound to have an enormous number of submissions to comb through.

Quote from necrogenesis

This is a neat idea, but utterly broken. Dark Ritual into this on the first turn in a storm deck is just game over. Even in non-storm decks, the potential of playing huge spells like Emrakul for free so early is scary.

Yes, it can feed a storm deck quite well. But ignoring for the moment that that is talking legacy, which R&D doesn't really design specifically for, the mana cost is mostly a suggestion. In this case, a signal that the enchantment is intended to be heavily black, and very difficult to splash. BBB is the classic cost for such a thing. It's mirror to Future Sight would be greater at 2BBB, which is probably closer to what such an effect could cost. And at that point, there are easier, less painful ways of playing huge spells for free.

Quote from necrogenesis

I really like this one. The wording probably needs cleaned up a bit, but the concept is great.

Thanks! I really liked it too, as I think Treacherous Pit Dweller was a great concept, and I'd love to see a card like that get some serious love. I avoided it because I was worried that it was too wordy and complicated, but now I'm really thinking it may have been the stronger choice.

Some pretty interesting (and insane!) ideas here. Personally, I went with a life for cards riff, which I'm now rather regretting, as the competition is likely to be extremely high, if they even want to choose any of those effects! Regardless...

Crossroads Bargain BBB
Enchantment
You play with the top card of your library revealed.
You may cast the top card of your library without paying it's mana cost. If you do, you loose life equal to it's converted mana cost.

As a black Future Sight, it felt rather interesting. I was seriously considering the following instead, but chose to avoid it because I thought it might be too complicated. Thoughts?

Dangerous Pact 1B
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a non-demon permanent. If you sacrifice this, target opponent gains control of all demons you control.
At the beginning your end step, put an X/X black flying demon creature token onto the battlefield under your control, where X equals the number of demons in play.

So you strike a deal to get some demonic allies. And as long as payment continues, they'll see you as a good cutomer and increase your credit limit. Of course, as soon as you miss a payment, they'll make sure you pay in full!

Quote from arvinsim

Someone will test this card in the Angel of Glory's Rise Reanimator deck for sure.

Which is likely where this card has the greatest chance to do something awesome. Since we don't have the specifics of Evolve yet, I'm not sure if it checks P/T upon resolution as well. If it doesn't, then it will almost certainly be a powerful 1 of in Glory's Rise decks.

Quote from Lorelorn

Ral Zarek is in

It certainly looks that way, but people speculated he'd be in RTR based off the Nivix Guildmage art, so don't start counting your chickens just yet.

Mind Sculptor won't be included, not because it's from Worldwake, but because it's banned. The set won't include any currently banned cards, and they also stayed away from cards they were on the fence about banning.

Personally, while I'd love to see the Onslaught fetches reprinted, I suspect they're only reprint cards that are already Modern legal, and not add new ones.