I will be writing another theory crafting article on improving various combo archetypes.
Why Combos?:
Combo decks have been insanely fun to draft and execute - even when combo decks weren't at their best, its always a very rewarding experience to get to win through Brain Freeze for 7, Pestermite - Splinter Twin for infinite, Time Vault for infinite turns, put 20/20 Marit Liege into play, Persist for infinite damage etc. As a new cube drafters, there was always something incredibly exciting about getting to sit down for a new draft and attempting to assemble an archetype/ combo I wasn't able to execute sufficiently in a previous draft.
However, other cube curators have also pointed out that archetypes/ combo decks were not just playable in 2022, but they provided an important counter play for the inherently powerful cards of Oko, Uro, Ragavan, Urza's Saga etc. This created a very fun and interesting dynamic.
The problem:
The inherent problem with combo decks is that the pieces are often parasitic in nature as they may only work sufficiently well in their dedicated shell, there aren't sufficient redundancy for combo decks and the deck could flop if they didn't draft sufficient combo pieces.
In this article, I will be theory crafting the strategies I took to mitigate these problems.
Combo 1 - Polymorph:
There was a lot of excitement when Transmogrify and Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast were printed - there were sufficient polymorph + token generator effects for the deck to exist. I originally felt this was an really exciting archetype to explore as it provided the necessary redundancy for Oath of Druids / Sneak Attack/ Channel style decks to become self sufficient.
However, in practice I felt the archetype created three major problems:
1. It fail to play sufficiently well with the existing fatty cheat archetypes - Welder/ Ramp/ Reanimator etc. and frequently required its own independent shell. (It also took up a lot of real estate)
2. The combo was very all-in unlike reanimator/ green ramp and didn't play sufficiently well against Oko, Teferi, White based removal etc. The matchups were very lopsided.
3. Polymorph at its best almost never outperformed Sneak attack.
The experiment was not a failure however. When I was working on the fatty cheat archetype, I realized there were roughly 7 cheat into play effects and unfortunately these effects don't overlap with each other as much as I anticipated:
1. Mishra's Workshop (Artifact Ramp)
2. Channel
3. Sneak Attack (Cheat from Hand + Haste)
4. Reanimation (Cheat from graveyard - no haste)
5. Euerka (Cheat from hand - no haste)
6. Polymorph (Cheat from top of library + requires creature - no haste)
7. Instant Reanimation (Cheat from graveyard + haste)
8. Natural Order (Cheat from library + Green - no haste)
9. Welder
10. Oath of Druid (Cheat from top of library - no haste)
The overall problem I've found is that most fatties will at best play well in at best 5 of the archetypes and each archetype at best overlaps with 3 of the other archetypes given color, creature, graveyard requirements.
During this experiment, I've realize that Show and Tell, Incarnation Technique and Sneak Attack were the best fatty cheat enablers. Sneak Attack was very powerful and could fit in almost any shell - Ramp, Artifacts, Reanimator etc.
Show and Tell/ Incarnation Technique were relatively risky and the creatures were vulnerable to white based removal, but they were good backup options for any of the above 10 archetypes.
* There is a discussion about the strength of Show and Tell - Its much stronger in paper than MTGO as MTGO does not pair drafters against their own pod. It is much more likely for the Show and Tell player to face the mirror where the card can easily backfire.
They proved to be ineffective primary game plans, but their flexibility were incredibly with helping various deck achieve the density (and consistency).
When I was working on the Polymorph archetype, I found that these enablers served as good backup:
The latter two are fine creatures in their own right as a 4 power haste for 4 was great at running down planeswalkers and a 5 mana 6/6 body can end the game on its own. Lukka was great as it can polymorph tokens, Welder, Discard outlets, mana dorks etc. into higher CMC threats while providing resilience against slower matchups.
These cards aren't 10/10 in any of the shells, but their ability to play the Show and Tell role in the majority of these archetypes have really helped to provide the redundancy for many of the more fringe enablers.
Combo 2 - Persist:
The persist archetype is a three part combo requiring a sacrifice outlet, persist creature and -1/-1 remover etc.
Traditionally, creature combos are much less all-in than their storm/ fatty cheat counter parts and often have a Plan B of creature based beatdown against more fair archetypes. In cube, these decks are much less risky to draft as failing to assemble a sufficiently strong Melira deck often means the drafter has a decent GW beatdown archetype.
During cube construction, I've noticed that of roughly 4-5 persist creatures, sacrifice outlets, recursion engines were playable in their own right in their deck/ cube. This is shy of the 7-8 enablers required for persist decks to be sufficiently drafted.
The primary problem with the archetype is most Melira Loops do not result in instant win and require clunky artifact sacrifice outlets, which is both more difficult to tutor, expensive and clucky and are often do nothing.
The archetype in constructed is often a toolbox archetype with Survival of the Fittest - Toolbox decks would like to play overcosted/ situational 1-offs and often 40 card decks do not have room for random creatures if it needs to play melira. Its often stuck between trying to go all-in with 3+ persist/ 3+ recursion / 3+ scarifice outlets with very cluncky colors/ curve etc. and often barely performing better than a more traditional abzan midrange deck.
I realized that the best methods to assemble the persist combo often involved cards that can tutor for multiple creatures such as Birthing Pod, Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, Prime Speaker Vannifar etc. rather than attempting to draw 2 of the three pieces and using tutors. This is very similar to constructed as EDH uses Protean Hulk, Modern uses Collected Company/ Birthing Pod.
I feel the best approach for handling this archetype is to move away from adding the 5th to 7th weaker enablers for sacrifice, recursion, persist but instead add more cards that can tutor for multiple creatures such as:
along with Visera Sear/ Yawgmoth/ Woe Strider to scry into a Blood Artist/ win loop.
The majority of the melira pieces could play very well in other cube decks - Melira herself is often very good in a melira deck not planning to combo as a 2 drop is often a very good scarifice fodder/ beat down creatures. Altar of Dementia has proven to be both an excellent win con, but graveyard fueling card for the recursion engines.
I frequently found cards like Blasting Station to be both too narrow/ clucky/ and an underperformer in the melira deck.
I feel players should only try to draft all-in melira if they open a Redcap/ Altar/ Kitchen Finks/ Goblin Bombardment etc.
The other pieces are fine creatures in midrange rec/ sac shells.
Combo 3 - Dark Depths:
The Dark Depths archetype involves Thespian Stage and Dark Depths to make a 20/20. The problem with this archetype is lacks sufficient redundancy with dark depths. However, its enablers Thespian Stage, Mirage Mirror are strong playables in their own right.
I experimented with this deck adding cards such as Magus of the Moon, Solemnity, Vampire Hexmage and found they were weak playables, even in the dark depths deck. I learned that in order for these enablers to be playable, there needs to be a backup Dark Depths (Which there isn't).
I found the combo to be especially strong with land recursion such as Life from the Loam and multiple land tutors such as Knight of the Reliquary and Dark Depths could serve as a backup infinite mana sink for infinite mana combos.
The main benefit of this archetype is it only takes up two card slots - Thespian Stage and Dark Depths - Mirage Mirror is a strong card by itself and could serve as an enabler for the Time Vault combo.
I'm planning to keep this in the cube as a combo that could be occasionally assemble and added to their deck if they the drafter chooses to speculate on a Dark Depths early in the draft and the enablers wheel to them.
I don't plan to add redundancy to this combo or remove the combo as it takes up only 2 cube slots and its occasionally fun to see the combo assembled.
Combo (Archetype) 4 - Flicker:
The Flicker archetype is traditionally Blue-White with anchor cards such as:
1. Blue is an over-taxed color in vintage cube and its slots are very competitive both as slots/ during drafting.
2. Blue-White is a very slow combination and has traditionally weaker and more expensive removal and the majority of its flicker targets + enablers are 3 CMC +. This often forces the archetype into Bant for acceleration.
3. The archetype didn't really do anything broken - it needs something like Arcane Savant / Clocknapper for an infinite combo to really justify running cards like Soulherder/ Thassa. It felt too fair/ too slow.
I felt the archetype should not be a UW shell, but a Mardu shell:
- Black sacrifice/ stax can utilize the bodies in addition to the flicker
- White recursion such as Revelliark are much stronger in an aggressive/ sacrifice shell as more creatures hit the bin
- The best flicker targets have been ETB creatures with removal.
- Can take advantage of cards like Purphoros, God of the Forge, Mimic Vat, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
- Aggressive decks can better utilize Flicker defensively to protect creatures
- Kor Skyfisher/ Yorion, Sky Nomad have been too slow in UW flicker shells. They are great in Mardu shells at both flicker enablers but also flying threats to push through damage.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
I will be writing another theory crafting article on improving various combo archetypes.
Why Combos?:
Combo decks have been insanely fun to draft and execute - even when combo decks weren't at their best, its always a very rewarding experience to get to win through Brain Freeze for 7, Pestermite - Splinter Twin for infinite, Time Vault for infinite turns, put 20/20 Marit Liege into play, Persist for infinite damage etc. As a new cube drafters, there was always something incredibly exciting about getting to sit down for a new draft and attempting to assemble an archetype/ combo I wasn't able to execute sufficiently in a previous draft.
However, other cube curators have also pointed out that archetypes/ combo decks were not just playable in 2022, but they provided an important counter play for the inherently powerful cards of Oko, Uro, Ragavan, Urza's Saga etc. This created a very fun and interesting dynamic.
The problem:
The inherent problem with combo decks is that the pieces are often parasitic in nature as they may only work sufficiently well in their dedicated shell, there aren't sufficient redundancy for combo decks and the deck could flop if they didn't draft sufficient combo pieces.
In this article, I will be theory crafting the strategies I took to mitigate these problems.
Combo 1 - Polymorph:
There was a lot of excitement when Transmogrify and Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast were printed - there were sufficient polymorph + token generator effects for the deck to exist. I originally felt this was an really exciting archetype to explore as it provided the necessary redundancy for Oath of Druids / Sneak Attack/ Channel style decks to become self sufficient.
However, in practice I felt the archetype created three major problems:
1. It fail to play sufficiently well with the existing fatty cheat archetypes - Welder/ Ramp/ Reanimator etc. and frequently required its own independent shell. (It also took up a lot of real estate)
2. The combo was very all-in unlike reanimator/ green ramp and didn't play sufficiently well against Oko, Teferi, White based removal etc. The matchups were very lopsided.
3. Polymorph at its best almost never outperformed Sneak attack.
The experiment was not a failure however. When I was working on the fatty cheat archetype, I realized there were roughly 7 cheat into play effects and unfortunately these effects don't overlap with each other as much as I anticipated:
1. Mishra's Workshop (Artifact Ramp)
2. Channel
3. Sneak Attack (Cheat from Hand + Haste)
4. Reanimation (Cheat from graveyard - no haste)
5. Euerka (Cheat from hand - no haste)
6. Polymorph (Cheat from top of library + requires creature - no haste)
7. Instant Reanimation (Cheat from graveyard + haste)
8. Natural Order (Cheat from library + Green - no haste)
9. Welder
10. Oath of Druid (Cheat from top of library - no haste)
The overall problem I've found is that most fatties will at best play well in at best 5 of the archetypes and each archetype at best overlaps with 3 of the other archetypes given color, creature, graveyard requirements.
During this experiment, I've realize that Show and Tell, Incarnation Technique and Sneak Attack were the best fatty cheat enablers. Sneak Attack was very powerful and could fit in almost any shell - Ramp, Artifacts, Reanimator etc.
Show and Tell/ Incarnation Technique were relatively risky and the creatures were vulnerable to white based removal, but they were good backup options for any of the above 10 archetypes.
* There is a discussion about the strength of Show and Tell - Its much stronger in paper than MTGO as MTGO does not pair drafters against their own pod. It is much more likely for the Show and Tell player to face the mirror where the card can easily backfire.
They proved to be ineffective primary game plans, but their flexibility were incredibly with helping various deck achieve the density (and consistency).
When I was working on the Polymorph archetype, I found that these enablers served as good backup:
- Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast
- Ilharg, the Raze-Boar
- Fireflux Squad
The latter two are fine creatures in their own right as a 4 power haste for 4 was great at running down planeswalkers and a 5 mana 6/6 body can end the game on its own. Lukka was great as it can polymorph tokens, Welder, Discard outlets, mana dorks etc. into higher CMC threats while providing resilience against slower matchups.
These cards aren't 10/10 in any of the shells, but their ability to play the Show and Tell role in the majority of these archetypes have really helped to provide the redundancy for many of the more fringe enablers.
Combo 2 - Persist:
The persist archetype is a three part combo requiring a sacrifice outlet, persist creature and -1/-1 remover etc.
The classic is Viscera Seer, Murderous Redcap and Melira, Sylvok Outcast.
The archetype on paper can be very strong as the majority of these enablers are cube staples in their own right and could be assembled very easily via creature tutors such as Birthing Pod, Vivien, Monsters' Advocate, Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman etc.
Traditionally, creature combos are much less all-in than their storm/ fatty cheat counter parts and often have a Plan B of creature based beatdown against more fair archetypes. In cube, these decks are much less risky to draft as failing to assemble a sufficiently strong Melira deck often means the drafter has a decent GW beatdown archetype.
During cube construction, I've noticed that of roughly 4-5 persist creatures, sacrifice outlets, recursion engines were playable in their own right in their deck/ cube. This is shy of the 7-8 enablers required for persist decks to be sufficiently drafted.
The primary problem with the archetype is most Melira Loops do not result in instant win and require clunky artifact sacrifice outlets, which is both more difficult to tutor, expensive and clucky and are often do nothing.
The archetype in constructed is often a toolbox archetype with Survival of the Fittest - Toolbox decks would like to play overcosted/ situational 1-offs and often 40 card decks do not have room for random creatures if it needs to play melira. Its often stuck between trying to go all-in with 3+ persist/ 3+ recursion / 3+ scarifice outlets with very cluncky colors/ curve etc. and often barely performing better than a more traditional abzan midrange deck.
I realized that the best methods to assemble the persist combo often involved cards that can tutor for multiple creatures such as Birthing Pod, Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, Prime Speaker Vannifar etc. rather than attempting to draw 2 of the three pieces and using tutors. This is very similar to constructed as EDH uses Protean Hulk, Modern uses Collected Company/ Birthing Pod.
I feel the best approach for handling this archetype is to move away from adding the 5th to 7th weaker enablers for sacrifice, recursion, persist but instead add more cards that can tutor for multiple creatures such as:
- Vivien on the Hunt
- Birthing Pod
- Vivien, Monster's Advocate
- Fiend Artisan
- Survival of the Fittest
- Fauna Shaman
- Protean Hulk
etc.
The deck should move less to all-in melira that wins on the spot to a more creature recursion deck with cards like:
- Mikaeus, the Unhallowed / Luminous Broodmoth / Victimize / Lurrus of the Dream-Den / Reveillark / Living Death / Recurring Nightmare / Agadeem's Awakening
along with loops that can generate a huge advantage:
- Carrion Feeder (huge attacker) / Yawgmoth, Thran Physician (huge card draw/ removal) / Puppeteer Clique (reanimate all your opponent's creatures) / Greater Gargadon (9/7 haste attacker) / Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit (infinite booaster)
along with Visera Sear/ Yawgmoth/ Woe Strider to scry into a Blood Artist/ win loop.
The majority of the melira pieces could play very well in other cube decks - Melira herself is often very good in a melira deck not planning to combo as a 2 drop is often a very good scarifice fodder/ beat down creatures. Altar of Dementia has proven to be both an excellent win con, but graveyard fueling card for the recursion engines.
I frequently found cards like Blasting Station to be both too narrow/ clucky/ and an underperformer in the melira deck.
I feel players should only try to draft all-in melira if they open a Redcap/ Altar/ Kitchen Finks/ Goblin Bombardment etc.
The other pieces are fine creatures in midrange rec/ sac shells.
Combo 3 - Dark Depths:
The Dark Depths archetype involves Thespian Stage and Dark Depths to make a 20/20. The problem with this archetype is lacks sufficient redundancy with dark depths. However, its enablers Thespian Stage, Mirage Mirror are strong playables in their own right.
I experimented with this deck adding cards such as Magus of the Moon, Solemnity, Vampire Hexmage and found they were weak playables, even in the dark depths deck. I learned that in order for these enablers to be playable, there needs to be a backup Dark Depths (Which there isn't).
I found the combo to be especially strong with land recursion such as Life from the Loam and multiple land tutors such as Knight of the Reliquary and Dark Depths could serve as a backup infinite mana sink for infinite mana combos.
The main benefit of this archetype is it only takes up two card slots - Thespian Stage and Dark Depths - Mirage Mirror is a strong card by itself and could serve as an enabler for the Time Vault combo.
I'm planning to keep this in the cube as a combo that could be occasionally assemble and added to their deck if they the drafter chooses to speculate on a Dark Depths early in the draft and the enablers wheel to them.
I don't plan to add redundancy to this combo or remove the combo as it takes up only 2 cube slots and its occasionally fun to see the combo assembled.
Combo (Archetype) 4 - Flicker:
The Flicker archetype is traditionally Blue-White with anchor cards such as:
- Mulldrifter
- Restoration Angel
- Soulherder
- Brago, King Eternal
- Crystal Shard
- Thassa, Deep-Dweling.
The problem I had with this archetype is that:
1. Blue is an over-taxed color in vintage cube and its slots are very competitive both as slots/ during drafting.
2. Blue-White is a very slow combination and has traditionally weaker and more expensive removal and the majority of its flicker targets + enablers are 3 CMC +. This often forces the archetype into Bant for acceleration.
3. The archetype didn't really do anything broken - it needs something like Arcane Savant / Clocknapper for an infinite combo to really justify running cards like Soulherder/ Thassa. It felt too fair/ too slow.
I felt the archetype should not be a UW shell, but a Mardu shell:
- Black sacrifice/ stax can utilize the bodies in addition to the flicker
- White recursion such as Revelliark are much stronger in an aggressive/ sacrifice shell as more creatures hit the bin
- The best flicker targets have been ETB creatures with removal.
- Can take advantage of cards like Purphoros, God of the Forge, Mimic Vat, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
- Aggressive decks can better utilize Flicker defensively to protect creatures
- Kor Skyfisher/ Yorion, Sky Nomad have been too slow in UW flicker shells. They are great in Mardu shells at both flicker enablers but also flying threats to push through damage.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i