The Optimal Multiplayer Cube - 2014
Contents
- Introduction
- White
- Blue
- Black
- Red
- Green
- Gold
- Colourless
- Non-Basic Land
- Optimal Multiplayer Cube 2014
- Budget Version
- Legacy-Legal Version
- Conclusion
Green
The green vote was completed on October 27th 2014.
The Top 40
The green section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for green. In order, these were:
- Sylvan Primordial (18.4)
- Lurking Predators (17.3)
- Primeval Titan (15.7)
- Survival of the Fittest (11.4)
- Doubling Season (11.1)
- Defense of the Heart (11.0)
- Thragtusk (9.3)
- Genesis (9.0)
- Green Sun's Zenith (7.4)
- Seedborn Muse (6.9)
- Tooth and Nail (6.4)
- Sakura-Tribe Elder (6.0)
- Genesis Wave (6.0)
- Craterhoof Behemoth (5.3)
- Biorhythm (5.0)
- Avenger of Zendikar (4.7)
- Acidic Slime (4.1)
- Terastodon (4.1)
- Eternal Witness (4.1)
- Scavenging Ooze (3.7)
- Birthing Pod (2.7)
- Forgotten Ancient (2.7)
- Primal Surge (2.7)
- Beast Within (2.3)
- Fastbond (2.1)
- Regal Force (2.1)
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary (2.1)
- Greater Good (2.1)
- Oracle of Mul Daya (2.1)
- Burgeoning (2.0)
- Bane of Progress (1.6)
- Vigor (1.6)
- Priest of Titania (1.6)
- Natural Order (1.4)
- Crop Rotation (1.3)
- Life from the Loam (1.1)
- Pattern of Rebirth (1.1)
- Sylvan Library (1.1)
- Hydra Omnivore (1.1)
- Rancor (1.0)
The Curve
Okay, the problems with the initial curve...
- Our creature-to-spell balance here is 20-20. Ordinarily, we'd be rejoicing! But this is green, where we really want a ratio of three creatures to two spells (i.e. the opposite of blue, which is more spell-driven). To match what we did in blue, we really want a ratio of 24-16, which means we need to drop four spells for four creatures.
- The curve is currently at 5-8-3-7-5-13. We are really top-heavy here, even for green. We need to drop some of our fatties and add things at CC3 and CC5 if we can.
- We've got so many creature-cheating spells in here that we'd begin to get bored drafting that strategy! I don't think we need GSZ, Defense of the Heart, Natural Order, Pattern of Rebirth, Tooth and Nail and Lurking Predators (among others) all in the one cube! Let's make sure we drop some of these.
Fixing the Holes
Fixing the Creature/Spell Ratio
We need to drop four spells for four creatures. Let's see how many birds we can kill with the one stone, and try to drop high-CC spells that sneak out creatures while we're at it...
Primal Surge fits all of those categories. Tooth and Nail and Lurking Predators did too, but they rated too highly to drop, really. Let's drop Primal Surge plus the three other lowest-ranked spells. They were Rancor, Sylvan Library and Pattern of Rebirth.
-1 Primal Surge
-1 Rancor
-1 Sylvan Library
-1 Pattern of Rebirth
The next four creatures in the 2014 vote were Pelakka Wurm, Tornado Elemental, Axebane Guardian and Elvish Piper. Sigh... fatties and creature-cheaters... we're doomed! Let's throw these in for the moment, at least.
+1 Pelakka Wurm
+1 Tornado Elemental
+1 Axebane Guardian
+1 Elvish Piper
Fixing the Curve
After the above swaps, creatures now have a curve of 0-4-2-3-4-11, spells a curve of 5-3-2-5-1-4, and we have an overall curve of 5-7-4-8-5-15. Yuck. Let's start throwing fatties overboard.
We really want to get the number of finishers down to about four, and try to even the curve out with the replacements. Firstly, the bottom seven fatties to go are the following:
-1 Pelakka Wurm
-1 Tornado Elemental
-1 Terastodon
-1 Regal Force
-1 Bane of Progress
-1 Vigor
-1 Hydra Omnivore
The next seven creatures in our vote this year are as follows:
+1 Genesis Hydra
+1 Overgrown Battlement
+1 Silklash Spider
+1 Primordial Hydra
+1 Birds of Paradise
+1 Predator Ooze
+1 Deadly Recluse
That gets our creature curve to 1-8-3-3-5-4. What is up with that bulge at CC2? We can't win! Let's throw the last four of those overboard and find some CC3-4 stuff.
-1 Deadly Recluse
-1 Primordial Hydra
-1 Overgrown Battlement
-1 Genesis Hydra
There are only two of these left receiving votes in 2014 - Elvish Archdruid and Reclamation Sage. Both pretty good. But we'll have to go back to 2013 to get a couple of CC4 guys and even the curve right out. 2013 gives us Ravenous Baloth and Spike Weaver.
+1 Elvish Archdruid
+1 Reclamation Sage
+1 Ravenous Baloth
+1 Spike Weaver
Okay, that gets the creature curve to 1-4-5-5-5-4, and the overall curve to 6-7-7-10-6-8. That's pretty nice, really. Let's go with that.
Fixing the Creature Cheaters
Our curve is much nicer now, but it remains that seven of our sixteen spells can cheat creatures out in some way... oo er, nearly half! Let's drop the bottom three of those and replace them with the next best non-creature-cheating spell in that CC.
The bottom four of these guys are the following:
-1 Natural Order
-1 Genesis Wave
-1 Birthing Pod
They look like harsh drops, but we still have Lurking Predators, Defense of the Heart, GSZ and Tooth and Nail here (along with Elvish Piper and Survival of the Fittest to help the strategy)... that's plenty.
So we want the two next-best 4CC spells, and the next-best 3CC one. That gives us:
+1 Enchantress's Presence
+1 Garruk Wildspeaker
+1 Harmonize
I approve. Let's do that.
Budget Constraints
Two cards are above our $20 budget limit:
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary ($23.39)
- Survival of the Fittest ($37.09)
Okay, let's change this up. We're trying to replace a CC2 creature, and they printed a Survival of the Fittest on legs at this CC... Fauna Shaman, come on down!
So that leaves us trying to find a CC2 green spell that hands us a pile of mana, in order to replace Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. We're not going to find a permanent that good, so it's probably going to need to be an instant or sorcery... sounds like a job for Channel!
-1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
-1 Survival of the Fittest
+1 Fauna Shaman
+1 Channel
Archetypes to Add
As mentioned before, the mana curve for green is currently 6-7-7-10-6-8. As long as we're careful to add a couple of CC5 cards, we should be good - remembering, of course, that we are trying to reach a creature/spell ratio of 30-20 (and therefore needing to add six creatures and four spells in our final ten).
Green is obviously going to be dealing in creatures, and therefore tribes.
Elves: We've already got Archdruid, Rofellos and Priest of Titania (along with an incidental Elf or two) in our 40. Making a tribe of it is easy and fun. Immaculate Magistrate, Imperious Perfect, Joraga Warcaller and Ezuri, Renegade Leader are all strong Elves that boost the tribe. Elvish Harbinger will fetch any of them as needed, and Elvish Promenade keeps adding the tokens. Nissa Revane could even come along for the ride if you wish.
Treefolk: This tribe is underrated, and quite strong (as much as it leans towards a mono-green build). Timber Protector is the lord, Dauntless Dourbark and Dungrove Elder are the gorillas, Wickerbough Elder and Woodfall Primus are auto-includes, and Treefolk Harbinger fetches the lot of them. In the spell side, Lignify, Reach of Branches and Rootgrapple are all handy cards as well.
Beasts: The Timmy archetype for green. We have Ravenous Baloth in our 40 already, so we might as well make use of it. Wirewood Savage and Krosan Warchief are two tribal pieces, and from there it's easy to pick four good green Beasts. Rampaging Baloths should probably be one of them. Copperhoof Vorrac, Fangren Firstborn and Protean Hulk are all particularly angry Beasts.
Enchantress: This archetype is always popular and fun, no matter how vulnerable it may be. On the creature side, you can run Verduran Enchantress, Aura Gnarlid, Yavimaya Enchantress, Eidolon of Blossoms and a couple of others. Enchantments are easy to pick, but Ancestral Mask should absolutely be among them.
Example Elves Archetype
+1 Immaculate Magistrate (Makes gorillas)
+1 Joraga Warcaller (Elf lord, likes being the gorilla made by the Magistrate)
+1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Awesome mana-sink for the late-game kill)
+1 Imperious Perfect (Elf lord)
+1 Elvish Harbinger (Tutor)
+1 more Elf creature (and yes, there's plenty of choice!)
+1 Elvish Promenade (Accelerates Elf token production)
+3 other spells that play nicely (things that ramp the elves or untap them, or that help finish the game, such as Overrun, are good choices here).
Example Treefolk Archetype
+1 Timber Protector (Treefolk lord)
+1 Dauntless Dourbark (Treefolk finisher)
+1 Dungrove Elder (Treefolk finisher)
+1 Wickerbough Elder (Artifact/enchantment removal)
+1 Woodfall Primus (Recursive removal)
+1 Treefolk Harbinger (Tutor)
+1 Lignify (Treefolk-style Pacifism)
+1 Rootgrapple (Treefolk-flavoured removal)
+1 Reach of Branches (Instant, recursable Treefolk generation)
+1 more spell that works well here (probably something that fetches forests in some way)
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Posted Dec 8, 2014-
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Posted Dec 8, 2014Wow, that was quick... I went to lunch, came back, and you'd replied!
I don't think I've mentioned Treefolk as a possible archetype in years past, but it's definitely been floating around in my head as possible. I run a mono-green Treefolk deck with half of these cards in free-for-all Multiplayer, and it's been quite successful. Coupled with the fact that Wickerbough Elder and Lignify have stuck in my cube and aren't moving...
And yeah, I'll switch up the archetypes this year... variety is the spice of life! I was going to make the green one Treefolk anyway, just to see how it drafted for everyone (and hoping that it doesn't end up like Merfolk... which basically consists of a bunch of first-picks and a bunch of last-picks, so no-one ever ends up holding the full tribe).
EDIT: Oh, and I should add... Lignify even has its own enter-the-battlefield catchphrase in my playgroup: "Watch out for that... treeeeeeeee!"