The Fall iteration of the “Modern Cube” was available on MTGO until last week. As an avid cube drafers on MTGO, I thought it was time to share my thoughts about it.
The list drew many criticisms on the internet. I will not comment on the gross mistake that are the inclusion of drake haven and exclusion of gifts, as everybody has already said that. What surprised me most is that the list includes only half of the manlands (the zendikar ones), which is very doubtful from a design point of view. There are also a lots of doubtful choices, as if the design team was running out of ideas at some points, and needed some“fillers”. The non inclusion of certain cards surprised me, but I understood the overall design goals of the team, which tried to give an identity to each color while providing balance between them (and thus greatly reducing red in terms of raw power for that reason, by cutting many one drops and low cost burns compared to the previous iteration). There are certainly a certain number of doubtful choices, like the inclusion of wildfire, which was a trap, as even if the number of mana rocks was reasonable, it was not sufficient to support such an archetype, given the lack of signets. But I am not unhappy to have seen some really medium planeswalker like Elspeth Tirel or Jace, Unraveler of secrets replaced by solid cards like Angel of Sanctions or Icefall Regent. I did not understood the criticism regarding the inclusion of a lot of standard legal cards, after, the MTGO designer are like any cube designer, they try new things.
As always in any MTGO cube, the list is packed with planeswalkers. On the good side, the team seemed perfectly aware of the planeswalker high density of the list, and provided with a greater number of way to deal with them (the latest ones added this time being Cast out, Angel of sanctions and Never // Return).
The MTGO modern cube is a « modern » cube, in the sense that much focus is on tempo, creatures and board interactions. The most important take away from this is that a deck that do nothing (or simply ramp) for the first turns in terms of board presence has little chance to succeed (compared to vintage cube, where draw go is a legitimate strategy if a sufficient density of instant is achieved). This draft from Reid Duke is a good example of what you should not do in this environment : https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-reid-modern-cube-draft/. I think this also explains why green ramp strategies were not very successful comparatively in my view. Not having access to Rofellos, Craddle or Natural Order (making the deck at least a turn slower) that puts a lot less pressure on the opponent to find an immediate solution, opponent often has a way to deal with the mana elves in the first turns and thus considerably slow down the deck. Mono green was still very efficient when lowering a bit the curve and turning into a midrange strategy, with one or two splashes for a couple of powerful planeswalkers or a few removals, and trying to bury the opponent with card advantage. Rishkar’s expertise was nuts in this kind of decks.
There were a lot of interesting “new” cards (i.e., neither in the Vintage or the Legacy cubes), and in a sense this is quite refreshing. As a drafter, I must say that I often value fun over pure competitiveness, and in a sense, this iteration of the MTGO cube rewards that (as long as you make sure to draft something that have a legitimate plan to win, and not a pile of splashy cards without any synergy). It is really enjoyable to build decks around cards that does not make the cut in an unpowered deck, like mine. There is also a sense of nostalgia, as the list offers the opportunity to play again some archetype defining cards that used to make the cut for a cube but are no longer legitimate power wise, like crystal shard, mirror entity or mimic vat. Interesting cards from recent sets that would never fit in my own list like clever impersonator or prophet of kruphix were also worth trying, and often good surprises.
I 3-0d 4 leagues over 15 I joined, and 2-1d a good number of times, but I must say that I also 0-3d a handful of them. It took some time for me to really get a good grasp of the format, and properly evaluate the power level/utility of cards I had never played with. Once I understood I should prioritize aggressive to mid rangy two-three drops creatures (or cheap ways to deal with these if I was going for control), the games went much smoothly.
As in any “modern” cube, all creatures with a ETB ability proved to be much higher picks than the other ones. I personally avoided drafting “superfriend” decks, as, after a couple of tries, I was unable to find the good balance between fixing, sweepers/removals and planeswalker themselves, but a lot of players appeared to be good at this exercise. I felt that the "super-friend" archetype was less oppressive than back in Spring. Overall, I loved that sweet archetypes like mono black devotion or non blue control were potent choices.
Having not access to some of the most cube defining legacy legal cards also made me reevaluate the power level of some cube bombs (an obvious example being craterhoof behemoth), and rethinking a pick order too much set in stone in my mind. In a way, this was a good training to prepare for future drafts when I get the chance to play outside my usual groups.
I had a lot of fun and I am sure a lot of other people had, given the attendance numbers, and despite all the hate towards the cube that you can find on reddit. In terms of replayability, I think this cube offered quite a good deal of it. There are many modern only cube lists on Cube tutor, by players who are either constrained for budget reasons or simply are younger players that no real fondness for older cards that they never played with, and I think that the Modern Cube appealed to that public.
From a draft perspective, having access to only modern legal cards was quite challenging, as power level of cards is pretty even and there are no “automatic picks” like in a powered cube. As said on many forums, it was of course possible and often right to go for a list with a good curve, good stuff cards without so much synergy but a few bombs, but I felt that thinking out of box and focus on synergies was often rewarding. Some archetypes were pretty deep. I personally have never drafted an anthem deck (and probably never will), but I saw opponents with solid lists, and with so much choices offered, all sorts of anthem decks can be built (be it the classic aggressive white weeny, the token/go-wide based ones, G/W go-big based one with +1/+1 counters generators or B/W or decks with token generating planeswalker with resiliency to wraths – the last one appeared to be a bit slow but very potent strategy when it managed to stabilize). The experience was something in the middle between cube drafting (where you try to recreate a constructed deck) and limited. From a game play perspective, longer games provide for more skill testing game play, compared to Vintage Cube where luck in draft and in opener play a huge role (hello, T1 sol ring). Cards are still powerful enough to avoid ending up in a board stall (like it may happen in recent set drafts), but poor sequencing and sloppy plays were often punished. This pushes players to make better plays and squeeze maximum value out of them, which is always good.
Thanks for reading me. I would be happy if you can share your own impressions on this cube, sweet archetypes you drafted, and good stories!
Nice read! I also enjoyed this cube, and found a lot of the same things true.
I ended up making a lot of BW/Wx/Mono White 'anthem' style decks and did really well in the format because of it, winning 70% of my games. BW was the better of the iterations, and it relied on having disruption (usually discard) and at least 2 anthems in each deck. Sometimes it was Glorious Anthem/Spear of Heliod, other times it would be Gideon/Honor of the Pure, but having only 1 was a losing endeavor. It was so strong in that format to play t3 Lingering Souls or Spectral Procession and follow it up with an anthem. Games where I was able to t1 discard spell and then follow it up with that line of play were almost always guaranteed wins, and not like they had no chance but it made it really tough for opponents to win through that.
I had the least amount of success with green and blue decks. The blue decks should've played better than they did, I think it was more my draws than anything else, but the green decks suffered for the reasons you mention above. With all the disruption would would see in leagues randomly it would get picked apart, or you'd be punished by wraths or insane blue spells that are a lot better against green ramp decks.
Also re:hate, that's pretty common. The only perfect cube list is your own, and everyone has an opinion about cube and it's usually 'this one sucks' lol. A lot of the complaints I've seen there have been along the same subjective lines, like people saying 'i'd rather do vintage things' (understandable, people have preferences, but it's less a mark on the design) or 'it's not synergistic' (I think this is straight up wrong). The real valid one is some of the trash cards included are puzzling, and it's absurd to have Unburial Rites w/o Gifts Ungiven, but ultimately these are minor things.
If this was my every-week cube, I'd be disappointed, but for a change of pace it's a nice change of pace.
Thanks for your comments. You totally have a point when you say it's "a nice change of pace", and I think that's what I tried to say (and hence did not understood the narrow-mindedness of the haters).
It is not impossible we may have even played against each other (lol), as I remember being crushed by a B/W anthem deck, which was rebuilding so fast after the wraths I was playing. And you feel so hopeless when you have two black removals in hand and opponent is playing something in the lines of spectral procession, putting 6 power on the board with only three mana. I was also totally blowed out by dictate of heliod a couple of times. Anthem archetype does not really correspond to my play style, but I will give it a try next time, as, as you may have noticed, white was also pretty open during the drafts (mtgo drafters simply seems to not like draft white). I just wish that they include Angel of Invention, in place of -say- baneslayer angel (which is a real "trap card"). And, about what you said about disruption, I was also very surprised how late i could pick up things like inquisition or duress when I was drafting black.
I also felt blue to be underwhelming in the cube, and that may be also a consequence of the modern ban list. What makes blue good but not oppressive is the consistency provided by the cantrips, and with serum visions as the best cantrip, that just simply is not the case. The 4CC clones are fun, but it can be already to late when you cast it, and playing a 2/2 on fourth turn with a bounce effect at sorcery speed (looking at you - mist raven) is simply too late when you are crushed by an army of token. But sometimes, it is good to play in an environment where blue is not the best color head and shoulders.
1 mana black discard spells are generally underrated, but IMO they are the most important part of that deck and most black decks at least in the general sense. It's one of the things that really defines black as a color in cube IMO, and it's the one thing that I don't think is prioritized high enough by people drafting black.
Baneslayer Angel isn't a 'trap card' IMO, it played pretty well for me, but I agree that Angel of Invention would've worked better thematically with how many anthems there were. In fact, you could probably play that and remove a Glorious Anthem for something else.
The list drew many criticisms on the internet. I will not comment on the gross mistake that are the inclusion of drake haven and exclusion of gifts, as everybody has already said that. What surprised me most is that the list includes only half of the manlands (the zendikar ones), which is very doubtful from a design point of view. There are also a lots of doubtful choices, as if the design team was running out of ideas at some points, and needed some“fillers”. The non inclusion of certain cards surprised me, but I understood the overall design goals of the team, which tried to give an identity to each color while providing balance between them (and thus greatly reducing red in terms of raw power for that reason, by cutting many one drops and low cost burns compared to the previous iteration). There are certainly a certain number of doubtful choices, like the inclusion of wildfire, which was a trap, as even if the number of mana rocks was reasonable, it was not sufficient to support such an archetype, given the lack of signets. But I am not unhappy to have seen some really medium planeswalker like Elspeth Tirel or Jace, Unraveler of secrets replaced by solid cards like Angel of Sanctions or Icefall Regent. I did not understood the criticism regarding the inclusion of a lot of standard legal cards, after, the MTGO designer are like any cube designer, they try new things.
As always in any MTGO cube, the list is packed with planeswalkers. On the good side, the team seemed perfectly aware of the planeswalker high density of the list, and provided with a greater number of way to deal with them (the latest ones added this time being Cast out, Angel of sanctions and Never // Return).
The MTGO modern cube is a « modern » cube, in the sense that much focus is on tempo, creatures and board interactions. The most important take away from this is that a deck that do nothing (or simply ramp) for the first turns in terms of board presence has little chance to succeed (compared to vintage cube, where draw go is a legitimate strategy if a sufficient density of instant is achieved). This draft from Reid Duke is a good example of what you should not do in this environment : https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-reid-modern-cube-draft/. I think this also explains why green ramp strategies were not very successful comparatively in my view. Not having access to Rofellos, Craddle or Natural Order (making the deck at least a turn slower) that puts a lot less pressure on the opponent to find an immediate solution, opponent often has a way to deal with the mana elves in the first turns and thus considerably slow down the deck. Mono green was still very efficient when lowering a bit the curve and turning into a midrange strategy, with one or two splashes for a couple of powerful planeswalkers or a few removals, and trying to bury the opponent with card advantage. Rishkar’s expertise was nuts in this kind of decks.
There were a lot of interesting “new” cards (i.e., neither in the Vintage or the Legacy cubes), and in a sense this is quite refreshing. As a drafter, I must say that I often value fun over pure competitiveness, and in a sense, this iteration of the MTGO cube rewards that (as long as you make sure to draft something that have a legitimate plan to win, and not a pile of splashy cards without any synergy). It is really enjoyable to build decks around cards that does not make the cut in an unpowered deck, like mine. There is also a sense of nostalgia, as the list offers the opportunity to play again some archetype defining cards that used to make the cut for a cube but are no longer legitimate power wise, like crystal shard, mirror entity or mimic vat. Interesting cards from recent sets that would never fit in my own list like clever impersonator or prophet of kruphix were also worth trying, and often good surprises.
I 3-0d 4 leagues over 15 I joined, and 2-1d a good number of times, but I must say that I also 0-3d a handful of them. It took some time for me to really get a good grasp of the format, and properly evaluate the power level/utility of cards I had never played with. Once I understood I should prioritize aggressive to mid rangy two-three drops creatures (or cheap ways to deal with these if I was going for control), the games went much smoothly.
As in any “modern” cube, all creatures with a ETB ability proved to be much higher picks than the other ones. I personally avoided drafting “superfriend” decks, as, after a couple of tries, I was unable to find the good balance between fixing, sweepers/removals and planeswalker themselves, but a lot of players appeared to be good at this exercise. I felt that the "super-friend" archetype was less oppressive than back in Spring. Overall, I loved that sweet archetypes like mono black devotion or non blue control were potent choices.
Having not access to some of the most cube defining legacy legal cards also made me reevaluate the power level of some cube bombs (an obvious example being craterhoof behemoth), and rethinking a pick order too much set in stone in my mind. In a way, this was a good training to prepare for future drafts when I get the chance to play outside my usual groups.
I had a lot of fun and I am sure a lot of other people had, given the attendance numbers, and despite all the hate towards the cube that you can find on reddit. In terms of replayability, I think this cube offered quite a good deal of it. There are many modern only cube lists on Cube tutor, by players who are either constrained for budget reasons or simply are younger players that no real fondness for older cards that they never played with, and I think that the Modern Cube appealed to that public.
From a draft perspective, having access to only modern legal cards was quite challenging, as power level of cards is pretty even and there are no “automatic picks” like in a powered cube. As said on many forums, it was of course possible and often right to go for a list with a good curve, good stuff cards without so much synergy but a few bombs, but I felt that thinking out of box and focus on synergies was often rewarding. Some archetypes were pretty deep. I personally have never drafted an anthem deck (and probably never will), but I saw opponents with solid lists, and with so much choices offered, all sorts of anthem decks can be built (be it the classic aggressive white weeny, the token/go-wide based ones, G/W go-big based one with +1/+1 counters generators or B/W or decks with token generating planeswalker with resiliency to wraths – the last one appeared to be a bit slow but very potent strategy when it managed to stabilize). The experience was something in the middle between cube drafting (where you try to recreate a constructed deck) and limited. From a game play perspective, longer games provide for more skill testing game play, compared to Vintage Cube where luck in draft and in opener play a huge role (hello, T1 sol ring). Cards are still powerful enough to avoid ending up in a board stall (like it may happen in recent set drafts), but poor sequencing and sloppy plays were often punished. This pushes players to make better plays and squeeze maximum value out of them, which is always good.
Thanks for reading me. I would be happy if you can share your own impressions on this cube, sweet archetypes you drafted, and good stories!
I ended up making a lot of BW/Wx/Mono White 'anthem' style decks and did really well in the format because of it, winning 70% of my games. BW was the better of the iterations, and it relied on having disruption (usually discard) and at least 2 anthems in each deck. Sometimes it was Glorious Anthem/Spear of Heliod, other times it would be Gideon/Honor of the Pure, but having only 1 was a losing endeavor. It was so strong in that format to play t3 Lingering Souls or Spectral Procession and follow it up with an anthem. Games where I was able to t1 discard spell and then follow it up with that line of play were almost always guaranteed wins, and not like they had no chance but it made it really tough for opponents to win through that.
I had the least amount of success with green and blue decks. The blue decks should've played better than they did, I think it was more my draws than anything else, but the green decks suffered for the reasons you mention above. With all the disruption would would see in leagues randomly it would get picked apart, or you'd be punished by wraths or insane blue spells that are a lot better against green ramp decks.
Also re:hate, that's pretty common. The only perfect cube list is your own, and everyone has an opinion about cube and it's usually 'this one sucks' lol. A lot of the complaints I've seen there have been along the same subjective lines, like people saying 'i'd rather do vintage things' (understandable, people have preferences, but it's less a mark on the design) or 'it's not synergistic' (I think this is straight up wrong). The real valid one is some of the trash cards included are puzzling, and it's absurd to have Unburial Rites w/o Gifts Ungiven, but ultimately these are minor things.
If this was my every-week cube, I'd be disappointed, but for a change of pace it's a nice change of pace.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
It is not impossible we may have even played against each other (lol), as I remember being crushed by a B/W anthem deck, which was rebuilding so fast after the wraths I was playing. And you feel so hopeless when you have two black removals in hand and opponent is playing something in the lines of spectral procession, putting 6 power on the board with only three mana. I was also totally blowed out by dictate of heliod a couple of times. Anthem archetype does not really correspond to my play style, but I will give it a try next time, as, as you may have noticed, white was also pretty open during the drafts (mtgo drafters simply seems to not like draft white). I just wish that they include Angel of Invention, in place of -say- baneslayer angel (which is a real "trap card"). And, about what you said about disruption, I was also very surprised how late i could pick up things like inquisition or duress when I was drafting black.
I also felt blue to be underwhelming in the cube, and that may be also a consequence of the modern ban list. What makes blue good but not oppressive is the consistency provided by the cantrips, and with serum visions as the best cantrip, that just simply is not the case. The 4CC clones are fun, but it can be already to late when you cast it, and playing a 2/2 on fourth turn with a bounce effect at sorcery speed (looking at you - mist raven) is simply too late when you are crushed by an army of token. But sometimes, it is good to play in an environment where blue is not the best color head and shoulders.
1 mana black discard spells are generally underrated, but IMO they are the most important part of that deck and most black decks at least in the general sense. It's one of the things that really defines black as a color in cube IMO, and it's the one thing that I don't think is prioritized high enough by people drafting black.
Baneslayer Angel isn't a 'trap card' IMO, it played pretty well for me, but I agree that Angel of Invention would've worked better thematically with how many anthems there were. In fact, you could probably play that and remove a Glorious Anthem for something else.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic