MTG Salvation

Hey everybody, welcome to my cube and thank you for stopping by. Please let me know what you think.




Thank you for reading.

To be honest, I wouldn't even run a single one of them. If my deck want some mana acceleration, I rather have a reliable ramp spell. Also while it looks like the card did something, when you get to drop a second land the turn you cast it, this only mattes if you also get to play a land during your next turn as well, since otherwise you are not ahead on mana at all.

I never truly viewed Explore as a straight up ramp spell. To me it has always been a pseudo Time Walk early game which allowed you to both draw a card and get a land drop ahead if needed or function as a cantrip late game. It's rather frustrating drawing a ramp spell late game when you need gas :/.

What I like about the walkers is that they punish decks that durdle around, allow WotC to print strong "enchantments" that can be handled by all colors instead of just G+W and finally, they can add some extra value / flexibility to some basic effects that partially would not make it into the cube otherwise.

I do agree with that but I still don't know about their addition. Most people have been happy they weren't in the cube and some cards with similar advantage, such as Drana, have received complaints in the past. I'll keep them out for now, but I will give them constant consideration based on what is needed.

Interesting cards:
Serra Avenger and Jotun Grunt might only have a cmc of 2, but they are much closer to 4 mana cards and there you have far better options imo.

Opposition is a strong cad in the wrong color.
Old Man of the Sea isn't a terrible card, simply because a 2/3 body in a color with less early board presence is helpful, but a lot of things have to go wrong that you win a game because of his ability.

Get rid of Godo.

Scavenging Ooze is a good bear for your curve, has a cheap beneficial ability and can grow quite large as well.
Restock and other 5 mana cards without board impact have become too slow imo.

Agreed on Avenger, but Grunt is more of a Graveyard hate guy who can also swing for four and I am in the market for more grave hate. I'd also like to cut one of the Shadow guys, probably the pro black one as I'm not a huge fan of the mechanic currently and while I like having some of it in the cube, I don't want too much.

Would putting in Zealous Conscript in for Godo work? Similar enough mana cost, and it takes control of any permanent on the board which can be nice.

I'll have to work on getting an Ooze, and I'm of the same opinion on Restock. It also clashes with All Sun's Dawn which is far more interesting in a prismatic deck.

... or you could just ignore the cmc and only run the best ones of each color pair.

To some extent I have, and I view it as more of a guideline than a hard rule. For the most part cards fell into the slots naturally based on what I wanted to run, and otherwise it added some interesting cards to the cube. I'm definitely flexible on this.

I can't say that the cost didn't have anything to do with this decision, but besides being too good, leaving out the duals also promotes a more interesting mana base that is more tailored to the needs of each color pair.

The power of the Karoos is not the possibilities with twiddle effects, but that they fix 2 colors at once, give you access to more mana and you get the option to trade a land for a different effect (looting, Masticores, ...) while advancing your mana base at the same time.

Cost does play a role, as I like pimping out my projects and even FBB duals cost silly amounts but honestly I'm not worried about using proxies either.

As for Karoos it just didn't seem like they were favored enough in colours outside of blue. More so, going back to the exclusion of Duals I'm still seeing people who end up with the deck of 2-5 basic lands based on the number of colours they're playing. All and all I think keeping a few Karoos in is good, but the original 10 were excessive in my opinion.

Unless I f'ed up during the importing process, you are running a different number of cards in your sections: W 50, U 49, R 49, B 50, G 51 (49+2x Explore).

Hu, I did a quick hand count and it seems to be the case. I know there are 50 physical cards but I must have made an error in copy-pasting from the spread sheet I used.

There are also some errors in the cards listed due to changes made recently. Such as Compulsion being Trinket Mage.

Edit: Some cards were missing a 1 in front of them and didn't get a card tag as such... That should fix the odd count.

Quote from eidolon232

Comparing it to Time Walk is setting the standards way too high for this card. It is an inferior version of Time Walk in the WCS of the walk. If your deck wants extra mana early and more spells later in the game, Edge of Autumn might be just the kind of card that you are looking for.

Fair enough, Time Walk after all is a win condition more than an early game ramp spell. Mostly Explore is in because it's a very playable card that has a bit of humour behind it, though if I do end up cutting it I think Edge of Autumn is the clear replacement.

It is the best anti graveyard card in white, but I still don't see that there is a high enough density of gy cards that I see the necessity to include such a thing.

While Shadow was a terrible mechanic in its limited environment, since it made the games uninteractive, there is nothing wrong with having one or two of those in your draft deck in a format where aggro cards that don't lose in value as the game progresses are very welcome.

That's really the thing about graveyard based decks in this format, either they are a side strategy or they are the dominant deck if drafted correctly. It's much like Dredge in eternal formats, sometimes it just happens and takes an event, and I feel like having a high enough density of hate allows people to get it consistently enough that they still have a decent sideboard when the deck is dominant.

Hm, that sounds good, I'll leave the third Shadow guy in.

Stealing a +2ed Gideon Jura and smash for 14 instead of 0 was really brutal.

That is not right. . .Conscripts are awesome, didn't even notice that it said permanent instead of creature until I read this.

Quote from Rathkeaux

That is not right. . .Conscripts are awesome, didn't even notice that it said permanent instead of creature until I read this.

Neither did I until I was talking to a friend who judged at the SGC Open in Providence and he mentioned how people would grab Karn with it to swing games.

Conscripts are ridiculously good. A good Threaten effect needed two or three things to really be cubeable:

1. Provide a body (Conquering Manticore already does this, but at a high cost and little flexibility).

2. Affordable casting cost. Five mana is generally the limit of what aggro decks are willing to pay, and it also means the Conscripts are online as part of the aggro deck's endgame plan of pushing the last remaining damage through. Manticore's 6CC cost pushes it somewhat into control and midrange territory, where the one-turn swing it grants is less valuable than for aggro.

3. Flexibility. Manticore only steals creatures. Word of Seizing provides oodles of flexibility, but getting board advantage requires some finagling. Conscripts just drops a hasty 3/3 in your lap with no strings attached.

It's a sick creature. It's everything Word of Seizing and Conquering Manticore always wanted to be, but better. And it's abusable because it's a creature. So good.

How does your list play out in two-player formats? Have you tried?

Also, do you feel like the equipment in this cube tends to run away with games?

It's not so much I don't like Planeswalkers and at times I wanted to include specific ones, it's just that their power level is too high for what I'm trying to accomplish.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't understand banning all planeswalkers for their power when you're running Sol Ring, Library of Alexandria, and Jitte... I totally support trying to have a balanced cube, but to me that would entail banning Sol Ring and JTMS, Library and Ajani Vengeant. It just seems weird for some of the weaker 'walkers like Chandra Ablaze and Sarkhan the Mad to be on the banlist, but not Ring or Library.

Just my $0.02

@Power Conduit: I haven't tried it as a two man format but I've done a few four man drafts and one time a friend and I laid out random packs and debated top picks from the pack. As a four man format it works well enough that a fair amount of the combos show up a fair amount of the time and most of the archetypes exist.

As for equipment, I'd say the inverse is true. Artifacts in this cube tend to suffer from the heavy dose of artifact removal that exists across three colours and the removal only helps bring that point home against equipment and creatures. There has only been one game where a Sword has taken over, and that was Sword of Light and Shadow against a B/W deck that decided not to run its Disenchant despite having Vampiric Tutor and other good ways of either answering the sword or digging for an answer.

The two cards that have had the most complaints so far are actually Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief and Havengul Lich because of their much stronger ability to generate cumulative advantage very quickly and interactions with other cards. However, four toughness should be answerable more often than not (Psionic Blast, Bituminous Blast, Prophetic Bolt, Sudden Death, etc) as a design aspect. More so, the games they ran away with were more the result of bad draws and play mistakes than anything else.


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@Metagame: Well that's a good question and I have a few answers to it.

The short and simple of it is that Chandra Ablaze and Sarkhan the Mad aren't so much banned as they just don't make the cut. Really that's the thing, most Walkers are either unexciting and bland or incredibly powerful in this environment and as such they have two very distinct restrictions.

Now, moving on to the issue of Library and Sol Ring. The main reason these are included and Walkers aren't is because Walkers are always good and generate a powerful advantage at all phases of the game while Library and Sol Ring are only degenerate early on and if you can use them to some effect. That's not to say both can't contribute in the late game but both do have a decaying power level while Walkers have an increasing power level as the board becomes more muddled.

In short, Library is a colourless land when your hand is bellow seven, and its main application is within the first two turns, particularly when you play it on your first turn and can draw immediately or after your next draw phase. Sol Ring has a similar thing going on, and while sometimes you accelerate into something awesome, you do have those games where you're accelerating into nothing really, such as when it's not actually speeding up your curve because of colour restrictions or general CMC in hand. More so, you will notice that the power level of the fat creatures in my cube is scaled down, as I do not believe that "resolving a 6 cost spell" should necessarily win you the game. As such you don't have the power play of ramping into Titans or Wurmcoil quite as quickly but rather you're ramping into more manageable threats. Neither Sol Ring nor Library will win you the game on their own, but most Walkers will.

Jitte on the other hand is a bigger issue, and one that I'm always monitoring. However, unlike Walkers, artifacts and lands are a lot easier to remove as a whole and the cube is filled with ample ways of dealing with a Jitte. Simply put, a Walker with any sort of defense, especially in a stalled board state is a nightmare to deal with, a Jitte on the other hand is much easier to deal with as all spells that would kill a Walker would also kill a Jitte, on top of artifact destruction spells that are usually two for ones by nature and can be tutored in more ways.

In short, the game was designed without Walkers for too many years and as such it's far easier to balance these other powerful cards than it is to balance Walkers.

Interesting points...

The short and simple of it is that Chandra Ablaze and Sarkhan the Mad aren't so much banned as they just don't make the cut. Really that's the thing, most Walkers are either unexciting and bland or incredibly powerful in this environment and as such they have two very distinct restrictions.

I disagree that there aren't any 'walkers that hit that sweet spot of being neither overpowered nor underpowered. Elspeth Tirel, Ajani Goldmane, and Chandra, the Firebrand are all examples of cards that are very good without being totally busted in a cube environment.

Now, moving on to the issue of Library and Sol Ring. The main reason these are included and Walkers aren't is because Walkers are always good and generate a powerful advantage at all phases of the game while Library and Sol Ring are only degenerate early on and if you can use them to some effect.

I would argue that Sol Ring is a totally broken play on turns 1 or 2, extremely good on turn 3, and very good for control/ramp on turns 4 and 5. And walkers don't generate a powerful advantage "at all phases of the game" because even a very powerful one like Gideon Jura won't come down before turn 4 under normal circumstances. (Unless you're playing Sol Ring, that is. :p) I don't have any experience playing with the Library, so I'll leave it alone.

Sol Ring has a similar thing going on, and while sometimes you accelerate into something awesome, you do have those games where you're accelerating into nothing really, such as when it's not actually speeding up your curve because of colour restrictions or general CMC in hand.

In my opinion even something like turn 2 Avalanche Riders is just totally busted.

More so, you will notice that the power level of the fat creatures in my cube is scaled down, as I do not believe that "resolving a 6 cost spell" should necessarily win you the game. As such you don't have the power play of ramping into Titans or Wurmcoil quite as quickly but rather you're ramping into more manageable threats.

It's an interesting approach, but you're are running Mind Twist, which has a nasty pseudo synergy with Sol Ring.

Jitte on the other hand is a bigger issue, and one that I'm always monitoring. However, unlike Walkers, artifacts and lands are a lot easier to remove as a whole and the cube is filled with ample ways of dealing with a Jitte. Simply put, a Walker with any sort of defense, especially in a stalled board state is a nightmare to deal with, a Jitte on the other hand is much easier to deal with as all spells that would kill a Walker would also kill a Jitte, on top of artifact destruction spells that are usually two for ones by nature and can be tutored in more ways.

In short, the game was designed without Walkers for too many years and as such it's far easier to balance these other powerful cards than it is to balance Walkers.

I think there are ways of shaping your cube environment so that it doesn't turn into a game of "who drafted the most planeswalkers." You can put in stuff like Bramblecrush, Beast Within, Despise, Oblivion Ring, Faith's Fetters, Zealous Conscripts. You can even consider unconventional cards like Confiscate, Desert Twister, or Necrotic Sliver.

In conclusion, I've been playing Magic since Revised, and as skeptical as I was originally of the new card type, I've come to love the complex game states that 'walkers create. But we can agree to disagree.

Cheers,
m

Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to design something like this which is viable for a two-man draft format but feel like it'd be tough to make something viable.

@Metagame: Currently not at home so I'll take some time in getting a reply to you.

Quote from Power Conduit

Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to design something like this which is viable for a two-man draft format but feel like it'd be tough to make something viable.

It's really not that bad, it just requires the right size and design.

We did a two man Winston Draft today while killing time with the cube and the decks were interesting, despite being awkward. Both were four colour but one was more of a tempo-aggro list and the other was a weird deck featuring Land Tax, Animate Dead, and some random cards. I won with tempo resolving Duplicants on his threats and generally playing bears, but he did win a game using Animate Dead on my Oracle of Mul Daya and then playing Meloku... Yikes.

I've made some changes to the cube as follows:

Firemane Angel ---> Goblin Legionnaire
Ashes to Ashes ---> Befoul
Umbilicus ---> Everflowing Chalice
Rayne, Academy Chancellor ---> Fettergeist
Orzhav Basilica ---> Temple of the False God
Explosive Vegetation ---> Kodama's Reach
Carven Caryatid ---> Wall of Blossoms
Moment's Peace ---> Wolfir Avenger
Gorilla Shaman ---> Lightning Bolt
Skirk Prospector ---> Hearth Kami
Vithian Renegades ---> Stormbind
Kor Firewalker ---> Lone Missionary
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Also after seeing it in Wtwlf's thread, I thought it would be a fun exercise to do here, so here's a pack generated in the cube and I'd like to hear what your top three picks would be and why you'd pick them over other options:



I apologize for the slightly blurry picture, so here's the list:

Row 1:
Mystic Snake
Crater Hellion
All Suns' Dawn
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Psionic Blast

Row 2:
Preacher
Mana Leak
Pillage
Thopter Foundry
Mishra's Factory

Row 3:
Phyrexian Arena
Snuff Out
Ranger of Eos
Fauna Shaman
Horizon Canopy

Without looking at the rest of your cube and taking into account any eccentricities:

1) Mana Leak - it goes in 60% of the decks I play, and its as good as a 1U hardcounter 85% of the time

2) Horizon Canopy - I value fixing very highly and green white is a color combination that I almost always play paired up.

3) Mishra's Factory - I actually like this card less than most people but it's fine as a colorless pick

HM: Elesh Norn - obviously commits me to playing a certain kind of deck but I think the reward is worth the risk. Kills every other creature in this pack except Hellion and turns off their Mishra's Factory and Thopter Foundry.

Quote from eidolon232

Orzhav Basilica ---> Temple of the False God
The temple is kind of a miracle card, since you really don't want to see it in the early stages of the game. Since the Basilica not only taps for mana when you have fewer lands but gives you more mana as well (once you would otherwise miss your first land drop), I would play it over the Temple - and that isn't even taking into account that the Basilica fixes 2 colors at once.

Spike Feeder (that's the 3 mana one) has lost of value with the "new" combat rules, so I would cut it before the wall. There aren't many creatures that can punch through / want to attack into a 2/5. (alternative cuts: Land Grant / the second Explore).

I'm really not a fan of the Temple currently and it will probably be swapped out in the near future. I think the card just wants to be a Mana Crypt or something.

I'm personally a fan of the Spike Feeder and he has been fine, even if just a board card often as I like encouraging the use of side boards as much as possible in my cube. The Land Grant on the other hand is on the short list of cuts, and the Explores don't really make sense unless there are two of them of course.

I'm also thinking of turning Yavimaya Hollow into a Pendelhaven as the green aggro decks in my cube tend to be more about mana dorks on turn one into a turn three play, than about 2/xs for 1 when it comes to green. It also works fine with Rootwallas and tokens.

I wouldn't play either of those two green-based lands in a 400 card cube.

I think there are ways of shaping your cube environment so that it doesn't turn into a game of "who drafted the most planeswalkers." You can put in stuff like Bramblecrush, Beast Within, Despise, Oblivion Ring, Faith's Fetters, Zealous Conscripts. You can even consider unconventional cards like Confiscate, Desert Twister, or Necrotic Sliver.

Here is my issue with planeswalkers right here. They are warping the game so much that garbage cards like confiscate and desert twister suddenly make the cut for a 400 card cube? Seriously? Out of the 20,000 magic cards ever printed, a 6 mana control magic and a 6 mana destroy permanent card are suddenly worth including over the multitude of much more powerful and (more importantly) more intersting cards?

IMO people are being forced to make their cubes worse to deal with planeswalkers because they are basically broken.

1. Fauna Shaman - As long as I'm playing creatures, it's the most powerful card in the pack on its own (the others require support cards to make them better than the Shaman).
2. Mishra's Factory - Goes into most decks. Keeps my options open.
3. Ranger of Eos - try to draft a R/W or G/W aggro deck

Elesh Norn just requires too much reliance on being able to draft reanimator or ramp cards in order to play her, IMO.

ahadabans: Well to be fair Confiscate is awesome as it steals ANYTHING, which is invaluable because as good as creatures are, Lands, Artifacts, and Enchantments are just as easily terrifying. Desert Twister is a better example but it's still pretty good. However, the main offender I've seen is Bramble Crush which now sees play in powered cubes commonly, it's a decent enough card but would anyone run Creeping Mold? It does the same thing, sans Planeswalkers, and I'm sure most people wouldn't even consider it in real honesty, and Acidic Slime is the same thing on a 2/2 death touch body for 1 more, but still Walkers don't have enough answers, so Bramble Crush it is?

Quote from eidolon232

But isn't Carven Caryatid good against the same decks that you would board in Spike Feeder? It even cantrips, so it is easier to include in the maindeck.

Sort of, kind of. The Caryatid is purely defensive whereas the Feeder can be aggressive, along with providing defense against direct damage instead of just attacks and has more ways of interacting with things that use the grave or wanting creatures to die, such as Genesis or Promise of Bunrei.

Creeping Mold is a good card still. I run Bramblecrush over it simply because it has slightly more targets. I'd run both at 540.

Quote from ahadabans »

Here is my issue with planeswalkers right here. They are warping the game so much that garbage cards like confiscate and desert twister suddenly make the cut for a 400 card cube? Seriously?

No, they typically don't. I wouldn't even remotely consider either of those cards in a cube this size.

Quote from wtwlf123

Creeping Mold is a good card still. I run Bramblecrush over it simply because it has slightly more targets. I'd run both at 540.

Creeping Mold is fine but at 4 mana it's not exactly better than other cards that have one less mode. Sure I run Befoul but that kills creatures while also answering problematic lands main deck... And with Acidic Slime I just don't feel like Creeping Mold would make it regularly.

You never made a pick in the pack, just saying D:

1. Phyrexian Arena - Card advantage is good. Goes into every black deck.

2. Fauna Shaman - Card selection is good. I'll look to use this as an enabler for some graveyard shenanigans.

3. Ranger of Eos - Again, card advantage is good. Since adding this in, I've been really impressed. I'll look for more good 1-drops to draft alongside him, particularly ones that hold value into the midgame.

I think my picks would be as follows:

1.) Thopter Foundry. It's very rare that you don't get the second piece of the combo during a 6+ man draft, and even in a 4 man you're seeing about 45% of the cube, so it's a decent chance. It's a very powerful combo that can beat most decks if acquired, and hiding one piece early makes others more likely to pass the second piece.

More so, even without the Sword it's amazing with something like Goblin Welder as you can abuse it with Triskelion, Duplicant, and Sundering Titan as it not only gives you a sacrifice outlet but also a replacement artifact to weld off of. A similar, but slower interaction can be achieved with Academy Ruins... There are also other options like Sad Robot, Metamorph, and so on.

Foundry is a highly underrated card as people assume you need the full combo for it be good, when in reality it's actually a lot more versatile than that, but the traditional combo is obviously stronger than most things. Even doing something cute like sacrificing Tidehollow Sculler with the trigger on the stack can be useful to get rid of a card permanently... Which could lead to a lock with Welder, didn't think of that.

2.) Psionic Blast. It's very powerful removal, especially in this cube as most creatures have 4 or less toughness by design. It's also an incredibly unique effect for the colour it's in and it puts you in blue while still being easy to splash if that doesn't pan out.

3.) Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. I love her and she is too sexy to pass up. She's probably one of the best creatures in any cube.

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Big update and next pack coming soon.

Hey all! New pack is up, and it is juicy! Believe it or not this is in fact almost the pack we saw one time while drafting, though there are one or two substitutions for interest. I want to know your top three picks, in priority order, and why you believe each pick is better than the next down the line.




Also! There are changes, and here's the list:

M13 Specific Changes:
Kher Keep ---> Hellion Crucible
Thornling ---> Thragtusk
Vithian Stinger ---> Thundermaw Hellkite

Other Changes:
Land Grant ---> Llanowar Elves
Ohran Viper ---> Vengevine
Twinblade Slasher---> Wild Dogs
Iwamori of the Open Fist ---> Hunting Pack
2x Explore ---> Edge of Autumn

Innocent Blood ---> Phyrexian Scuta
Faerie Macabre ---> Braids, Cabal Minion
Cabal Patriarch ---> Wretched Anurid
Dread Return ----> Necromancy

Viashino Heretic ---> Fire Imp
Hammer of Bogardan ---> Spikeshot Elder

Yavimaya Hollow ---> Pendlehaven
Halimar Depths ----> Shelldock Isle
Temple of the False God ---> Coldsteel Heart
Sword of Vengeance ---> Grafted Wargear