Fair enough, was thinking you might have ran these strategies in your constructed EDH decks or seen people doing so. I've got no experience outside of a regular cube's Pox deck and even then it's a pretty new thing to cube still.
Saffi doesn't really do much that I want people to be doing and there are already more flavorful and usable Generals in GW....
-1 Saffi Eriksdotter
+1 Aura Shards
I needed to cut a Grixis General and add Bant. Pheldagriff is not going to get the support that a constructed Group Hug deck would have, but he seems interesting so why not?
-1 Garza Zol, Plague Queen
+1 Phedagriff
Similarly, Ruhan was not attracting RWU like Numot was. So, why not try Zedruu since there are a bunch of Global effects that could work nicely with her. She won't ever go nuts from combo like some constructed Zedruu decks, but a card or 2 each turn is awesome.
- 1 Ruhan of the Fomori
+1 Zedruu the Greathearted
Those changes all look really good to me, but I'm curious, has Trostani, Selesnya's Voice been used as a general yet? They looked pretty cool to me but then i realised that in all likelihood they would only be able to populate me a 1/1 solider most of the time. From a quick look over your white and green sections this seems to be the case two. Luminarch Ascension was the only token maker than jumped out at me as making something worth the slow populate.
Also I noticed that you run the small 1 and 2 cc mana elves, how have these been? They've never seemed that popular in regular EDH due to susceptibility to being wrathed but this risk is probably lessened in cube due to the vagueries of drafting preventing the super wrath heavy decks.
With all the land destruction, mana elves can be really strong. But mostly, they are there to give people options - Cultivate + Mana Rock + Elves = options. If all the ramp is land based or artifact mana it cuts people off... sometimes.
Trostani annoys me, but the life gain seems like the main mechanic I like. I haven't seen her played yet and the token thing probably isn't too good, but in Rith (:kank:), Ghave (:kank:), or even Mayael she is a good fat ass that gains life. Instant speed token blocker isn't bad either, right? She might become Sigarda though.
Yeah the lifegain could be pretty handy especially with the smaller generals running about in the draft pool so the traditional 2-3 general hits "oops, you're dead" situations should be lessened.
I looked at Sigarda too but she just seems pretty un-fun and non-interactive. I was planning on using Rhys and Saffi but wasn't too thrilled with Saffi in the general slot (I run 40 general separate to the draft packs).
Like the changes. I know Melek is the cool new badness and all, but there's not much support for him in the cube in terms of cool things to do with him, or big finishing spells in U/R. I've actually considered U/R a few times but the colors tend more toward land wipes and disabling enchantments than haymaker spells. I realize he gives an alternative to the other two U/R generals that center around card draw, but with the current list of cards in the izzet colors, I'd love to see the new Niv Mizzet. He burns, he pings, he's a 3 turn clock with a sword, and you don't have to try as hard to build a deck around him.
People actually like Melek?!! Why???? He just seems bad to me, but I thought he could make an interesting support card in URx decks. But, Dracogenius seems fine too and you know I like pinger-removal.
-Melek
+ Dracogenius.
Just updated with some M14 and hopefully we can get 2 4-man pods tomorrow night.
I really like Chandra 4 and Garruk 4 in here... both give potential card draw in colors that I've been weak on.
So many changes. Theros and CMD 13 were huge for the Cube and a lot of the "too good to deal with" cards have been filtered out.
Red is now the most drafted color so it's time to cut that **** out.
So many changes. Theros and CMD 13 were huge for the Cube and a lot of the "too good to deal with" cards have been filtered out.
Red is now the most drafted color so it's time to cut that **** out.
!!!
How the heck is Red your most-drafted color? Red has always been my least-drafted color, and as a result, there's frequently a strong mono-red deck waiting in the weeds. Blue, Green, and Black all show up in at least 5 decks per draft, while Red generally makes up a small portion of someone's Maelstrom Wanderer or Thraximundar deck
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Have you/do you have any plans to put this up at cubetutor.com? I'd love to be able to browse the cube in the site's visual spoiler.
Never heard of it. I'll look into it though. Apparently I already started to put it there a few months ago... huh.
It's here: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/5203
!!!
How the heck is Red your most-drafted color? Red has always been my least-drafted color, and as a result, there's frequently a strong mono-red deck waiting in the weeds. Blue, Green, and Black all show up in at least 5 decks per draft, while Red generally makes up a small portion of someone's Maelstrom Wanderer or Thraximundar deck
Nobody would touch red at first. So, I added made red a bit more nasty with hand and land destruction. It seemed to be enough, but I think the fact that the Rx generals are pretty solid too helps. Wanderer had to get cut because he's an auto-build if you pick him. Thrax almost always sees the command zone in an 8 player game. But then the RW and RB stax decks seem to pop up too. Ruric Thar is popular enough too.
I really think that red just supports the style of decks the guys here play better than any other color - it backs aggro, stax, and discard.
Never heard of it. I'll look into it though. Apparently I already started to put it there a few months ago... huh.
It's here: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/5203
Nobody would touch red at first. So, I added made red a bit more nasty with hand and land destruction. It seemed to be enough, but I think the fact that the Rx generals are pretty solid too helps. Wanderer had to get cut because he's an auto-build if you pick him. Thrax almost always sees the command zone in an 8 player game. But then the RW and RB stax decks seem to pop up too. Ruric Thar is popular enough too.
I really think that red just supports the style of decks the guys here play better than any other color - it backs aggro, stax, and discard.
Interesting. Most of our decks end up more Goodstuff than anything else, and Red is not nearly as strong in that area. Red's high quality picks are extremely good (Wheel of Fortune, Kiki-jiki, Gamble, Imperial Recruiter, Chaos Warp), but the quality falls off immensely after that point for your average deck. Compared to the other least-drafted color, White, it's a pretty stark contrast. White lacks cards that are quite as insane, but the average quality of each White card is higher. You know playing an XYw deck that you'll be able to pick up a handful of wraths, exile/tuck removal, artifact/enchantment destruction, equipment tutors, etc, making it a perfect complement to any control deck. With Red, you just hope enough people aren't drafting it so that you can scoop up the high quality cards to round out your Thrax deck.
LD in particular is less popular/common though so that's one area that we differ greatly.
What good cards does red have to complement discard decks?
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I've fantasized a few times about reorganizing my edh cube along card-incidence, rather than balanced color representation. The cube would probably skew heavily towards BUG > colorless > RW, but might lead to fewer wasteful inclusions, and more synergistic decks.
What's been your most memorable game using this cube?
There was this one:
"Play Sepulchral Primordial to grab Kiki-Jiki, Auralia, and something else... attack, copy Primordial, grab an Evil twin to copy Auralia, real Auralia dies, attack, copy Primordial to bring back Auralia, Evil Twin dies, Attack, Copy Primordial to bring back Evil Twin copying Auralia.... The other random crap was an It That Betrays and a 30/30 Lord of Extinction and other dumb stuff."
I don't remember exactly the order that it all happened so I am sure there is a rules glitch in my explanation, but we had a L2 judge approve so it must have been right.
But really, the games have been balanced between destructive and creative - which is what I like. People don't typically have linear or fast games and there are a ton of decision trees built into the cards.
LD in particular is less popular/common though so that's one area that we differ greatly.
What good cards does red have to complement discard decks?
Artifact and Land kill are both nice things red does. But, it also does a decent job of support a lot of other strategies - the the point that it gets drafted a lot. For example, here is the Prossh deck I drafted last week:
There aren't a lot of high power red cards, but red held up the tokens really well with Bettleback and Purphoros. The other red deck at the table was Zedruu and his looked similar - UW with a lot of red grease. With so many Rx cards and an emphasis on 3 color decks it sort of makes sense.
The Wheel effects have been the strongest part of discard, but discard likes land destruction too. That means that the enchantments and walkers see their share of play in discard decks.
I've fantasized a few times about reorganizing my edh cube along card-incidence, rather than balanced color representation. The cube would probably skew heavily towards BUG > colorless > RW, but might lead to fewer wasteful inclusions, and more synergistic decks.
Like Judgment? GW being the main players and **** you to B, R and U
Like Judgment? GW being the main players and **** you to B, R and U
I was thinking of that thread, "the real top 50" or something, that popped up in the commander thread, and measured and ranked the incidence of card x or y across all of the decks that were posted in the edh forum. So like, sol ring was #1 with a 80+ % incidnece, and down the line. I was thinking that someone could hypothetically build an x-sized edh cube, including cards of 100% incidence through, say, 5% or something. It would almost certainly skew green, with asymetric represnetation of the colors, guilds, and generals but would probably be a pretty interesting exercise.
I doubt I'd ever build it, as I specifically want to make sure there's representation of less used cards and strats, but I could see reorganizing my current cube pool to temporarily to simulate "the real top 50" sometime.
I was thinking of that thread, "the real top 50" or something, that popped up in the commander thread, and measured and ranked the incidence of card x or y across all of the decks that were posted in the edh forum. So like, sol ring was #1 with a 80+ % incidnece, and down the line. I was thinking that someone could hypothetically build an x-sized edh cube, including cards of 100% incidence through, say, 5% or something. It would almost certainly skew green, with asymetric represnetation of the colors, guilds, and generals but would probably be a pretty interesting exercise.
I doubt I'd ever build it, as I specifically want to make sure there's representation of less used cards and strats, but I could see reorganizing my current cube pool to temporarily to simulate "the real top 50" sometime.
I used scoeri's Real Top 50 as a resource for building my Cube way back when. It does give a somewhat incomplete picture of what the best cards in EDH are, because people's decklists take budget into account. For example, his monoblack list lists Demonic Tutor as the most played black card, Vampiric Tutor as the third most played, and Imperial Seal doesn't show up at all.
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I used scoeri's Real Top 50 as a resource for building my Cube way back when. It does give a somewhat incomplete picture of what the best cards in EDH are, because people's decklists take budget into account. For example, his monoblack list lists Demonic Tutor as the most played black card, Vampiric Tutor as the third most played, and Imperial Seal doesn't show up at all.
That's a good point, but knowing this I'm sure someone could refine/tweak the results to account for personal budget and to better conform to the cube format.
Oh wow... I totally missed that one. I thought you meant that you wanted to reinforce the color divide and push for specific color builds.
I don't think I would want to do that. It sounds like a lot of work but also it let's people draft what they want all the time. In most things in life I like to give some choice, but ultimately "figuring out how to make it work" is one of the most fun and rewarding parts of problem solving. I see the under-drafted colors as an opportunity to find a way to make them strong enough people will jump on them.
That said, the Cube here aims for 2 and 3 color decks. So, there are 10 (right?) color combinations that have Red... so there is range.
Comment on Chancellor made me laugh.
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WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Good luck with the cube.
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WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
-1 Saffi Eriksdotter
+1 Aura Shards
I needed to cut a Grixis General and add Bant. Pheldagriff is not going to get the support that a constructed Group Hug deck would have, but he seems interesting so why not?
-1 Garza Zol, Plague Queen
+1 Phedagriff
Similarly, Ruhan was not attracting RWU like Numot was. So, why not try Zedruu since there are a bunch of Global effects that could work nicely with her. She won't ever go nuts from combo like some constructed Zedruu decks, but a card or 2 each turn is awesome.
- 1 Ruhan of the Fomori
+1 Zedruu the Greathearted
Also, I added 4 lands to make a nice even 575.
+1 Forbidden Orchard
+1 High Market
+1 Island of Wak Wak (I own it, soooo:shrug:)
+1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Finally, Flagstones and Riptide Lab sucked.
-1 Flagstones of Trokair
-1 Riptide Laboratory
+1 Kor Haven
+1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Also I noticed that you run the small 1 and 2 cc mana elves, how have these been? They've never seemed that popular in regular EDH due to susceptibility to being wrathed but this risk is probably lessened in cube due to the vagueries of drafting preventing the super wrath heavy decks.
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Trostani annoys me, but the life gain seems like the main mechanic I like. I haven't seen her played yet and the token thing probably isn't too good, but in Rith (:kank:), Ghave (:kank:), or even Mayael she is a good fat ass that gains life. Instant speed token blocker isn't bad either, right? She might become Sigarda though.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I looked at Sigarda too but she just seems pretty un-fun and non-interactive. I was planning on using Rhys and Saffi but wasn't too thrilled with Saffi in the general slot (I run 40 general separate to the draft packs).
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- Tectonic Edge
- Stripmine - No need. Lands are already getting nuked all the time.
+ Mishra's Factory
+ Blinkmoth Nexus - I am a sucker for manlands.
- Eight-and-a-Half-Tails - Lame card.
- Priest of Norn - Infect isn't working so swap it out.
- Karmic Justice - Board wipes tend to make this less potent.
+ Sphere of Safety - Protects walkers
+ Intrepid Hero - Removal and a Soldier.
+ Mentor of the Meek - Draw and a Soldier.
- Vendilion Clique - Bad card.
- Stroke of Genius - Want little draw more than big draw
- Opposition - Never did anything.
- Blighted Agent - Infect out.
- Pestermite
- Deceiver Exarch - Don't actually want infinite combo
+ Brainstorm
+ Preordain - Little draw rules.
+ Cephalid Constable - One of my favorites with all 5 swords floating around.
+ Grip of Amnesia - Odd card, but I want more decision trees, draw, and graveyard hate... so it might work.
+ Collective Restraint - Another Tax to Attack card is good.
+ Aetherling - Blue should have a creature to beat with, right?
- Flesh-Eater Imp
- Phyrexian Crusader - Bye bye infect.
+ Oppression
+ Bottomless Pit - I love discard, soooo....
- Earthquake - Sorcery speed hurts.
- Fallen Ferromancer
- Razor Swine - More infect gone.
+ Death by Dragons - Har har har...duuurrrrr
+ Starstorm - I've seen too many board wipes and not enough instants. Fixed.
+ Shattering Spree - I don't know if it will work but others suggest it will.
- Restock - Yawn.
+ Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - Not yawn.
- Firespout - It's good, but too much Cascade in RG.
+ Zhur-Taa Druid - Mana dork and pinger? I like it!
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
WUBRG Some of these decks can actually win games...WUBRG
How I know I should build a deck:
-Melek
+ Dracogenius.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I really like Chandra 4 and Garruk 4 in here... both give potential card draw in colors that I've been weak on.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Red is now the most drafted color so it's time to cut that **** out.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
!!!
How the heck is Red your most-drafted color? Red has always been my least-drafted color, and as a result, there's frequently a strong mono-red deck waiting in the weeds. Blue, Green, and Black all show up in at least 5 decks per draft, while Red generally makes up a small portion of someone's Maelstrom Wanderer or Thraximundar deck
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Never heard of it. I'll look into it though.Apparently I already started to put it there a few months ago... huh.It's here: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/5203
Nobody would touch red at first. So, I added made red a bit more nasty with hand and land destruction. It seemed to be enough, but I think the fact that the Rx generals are pretty solid too helps. Wanderer had to get cut because he's an auto-build if you pick him. Thrax almost always sees the command zone in an 8 player game. But then the RW and RB stax decks seem to pop up too. Ruric Thar is popular enough too.
I really think that red just supports the style of decks the guys here play better than any other color - it backs aggro, stax, and discard.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Interesting. Most of our decks end up more Goodstuff than anything else, and Red is not nearly as strong in that area. Red's high quality picks are extremely good (Wheel of Fortune, Kiki-jiki, Gamble, Imperial Recruiter, Chaos Warp), but the quality falls off immensely after that point for your average deck. Compared to the other least-drafted color, White, it's a pretty stark contrast. White lacks cards that are quite as insane, but the average quality of each White card is higher. You know playing an XYw deck that you'll be able to pick up a handful of wraths, exile/tuck removal, artifact/enchantment destruction, equipment tutors, etc, making it a perfect complement to any control deck. With Red, you just hope enough people aren't drafting it so that you can scoop up the high quality cards to round out your Thrax deck.
LD in particular is less popular/common though so that's one area that we differ greatly.
What good cards does red have to complement discard decks?
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"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
There was this one:
"Play Sepulchral Primordial to grab Kiki-Jiki, Auralia, and something else... attack, copy Primordial, grab an Evil twin to copy Auralia, real Auralia dies, attack, copy Primordial to bring back Auralia, Evil Twin dies, Attack, Copy Primordial to bring back Evil Twin copying Auralia.... The other random crap was an It That Betrays and a 30/30 Lord of Extinction and other dumb stuff."
I don't remember exactly the order that it all happened so I am sure there is a rules glitch in my explanation, but we had a L2 judge approve so it must have been right.
But really, the games have been balanced between destructive and creative - which is what I like. People don't typically have linear or fast games and there are a ton of decision trees built into the cards.
Artifact and Land kill are both nice things red does. But, it also does a decent job of support a lot of other strategies - the the point that it gets drafted a lot. For example, here is the Prossh deck I drafted last week:
1 Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
1 Bloom Tender
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Wood Elves
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Marsh Flitter
1 Marton Stromgald
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Kessig Cagebreakers
1 Mycoloth
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Grave Titan
1 Nacatl War-Pride
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Garruk,Primal Hunter
1 Sarkhan Vol
1 Beastmaster Ascension
1 Doubling Season
1 Parallel Lives
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Golgari Signet
1 Gruul Signet
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Skullclamp
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Consuming Vapors
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Night's Whisper
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Taiga
1 Templeof the False God
1 Wooded Foorthills
1 Woodland Cemetery
There aren't a lot of high power red cards, but red held up the tokens really well with Bettleback and Purphoros. The other red deck at the table was Zedruu and his looked similar - UW with a lot of red grease. With so many Rx cards and an emphasis on 3 color decks it sort of makes sense.
The Wheel effects have been the strongest part of discard, but discard likes land destruction too. That means that the enchantments and walkers see their share of play in discard decks.
Like Judgment? GW being the main players and **** you to B, R and U
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I was thinking of that thread, "the real top 50" or something, that popped up in the commander thread, and measured and ranked the incidence of card x or y across all of the decks that were posted in the edh forum. So like, sol ring was #1 with a 80+ % incidnece, and down the line. I was thinking that someone could hypothetically build an x-sized edh cube, including cards of 100% incidence through, say, 5% or something. It would almost certainly skew green, with asymetric represnetation of the colors, guilds, and generals but would probably be a pretty interesting exercise.
I doubt I'd ever build it, as I specifically want to make sure there's representation of less used cards and strats, but I could see reorganizing my current cube pool to temporarily to simulate "the real top 50" sometime.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I used scoeri's Real Top 50 as a resource for building my Cube way back when. It does give a somewhat incomplete picture of what the best cards in EDH are, because people's decklists take budget into account. For example, his monoblack list lists Demonic Tutor as the most played black card, Vampiric Tutor as the third most played, and Imperial Seal doesn't show up at all.
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That's a good point, but knowing this I'm sure someone could refine/tweak the results to account for personal budget and to better conform to the cube format.
Sorry if I'm not making myself clear. I mean an edh cube, with the # of cards in each color section determined by weighted incidence in the edh meta.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=388001
so like (out of 200 individual cards):
55 Multicolor
41 Green
32 Blue
23 Black
23 White
15 Colorless
11 Red
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
I don't think I would want to do that. It sounds like a lot of work but also it let's people draft what they want all the time. In most things in life I like to give some choice, but ultimately "figuring out how to make it work" is one of the most fun and rewarding parts of problem solving. I see the under-drafted colors as an opportunity to find a way to make them strong enough people will jump on them.
That said, the Cube here aims for 2 and 3 color decks. So, there are 10 (right?) color combinations that have Red... so there is range.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.