MTG Salvation

Making 6 damage to the face for two mana is the best I could ask a blue card...

I used for a while cloudskate in my cube and it never seemed to me that the fading cared that much. Nowadays it's gone, but it could eventually return.

I run cloudskate in my peasant list. It deals 1 more damage than keldon maurauder, gives you two more turn to find a way to rebuy it. It's been excellent in my blue aggro decks and is one of ninja of the deep hours' best friends. It also deals its damage through pingers, unlike the 2/1 flier versions.

I have no idea how hard it is to support blue aggro here, but vaporkin, welkin tern, cloudskate, ninja of the deep hours, frost lynx, rushing river, and snap have proven to be a good base for me in peasant. Stealer of secrets may also be ok as it rebuys your card disadvantage from the bounce spells, but I have no idea how it plays for you guys here.

Quote from Runner5678 »

Would anyone consider Merchant Scroll? Pretty narrow of course but it's a C1 and technically a Common.

If you also play Mystical Teachings you can have a solid design. As it is, it would be good for UR spells-matter, and perhaps control. But you need to evaluate all good targets and if you would want it in your 40 over a creature.

You can also look into converting Sorcery options into Instant options. Examples like Petals of Insight into Mysteries of the Deep

Carrion Feeder seems a shoo-in for that archetype. I was contemplating Cry of Contrition for it as well, if I were to implement the deck in my own cube.

I like adding Soul's Fire, Fling, and Rite of Consumption when paired with Nantuko Husk or Carrion Feeder. They also have synergy with Kiln Fiend/Prowess strategies.

Quote from Runner5678 »

yeah I was thinking about those too. Feeder hasn't played well when I've used it unfortunately. Have you had good experiences? I'm always down to try a card again. Not being able to Block has really hurt it's chances.

It's been fine as a 1-drop which can scale out of the early game by protecting guys from tricks and sometimes removal. I won't say it's been stellar and I personally haven't played with it very much, but I haven't been unhappy with it. I imagine that adding another dimension to its ability would push into being solidly playable.

Sewer Shambler, even not beign super exciting on itself, has a very low-cost Scavenge.
Wakedancer synergises not only for the token it generates, but because of morbid.
Mortis Dogs have played really well for me.
Viscera Dragger is like a big-brother butcher ghoul, more expensive but more versatile.
Undying Evil, sacrifice to make bigger (and re-trigger ETB).

This is probably marginal too, but I just realized that, in a way, Manifest puts tokens that stay on the graveyard when they die, so that is an aditional synergy with Delve and other graveyard-matters stuff.

Compare Butcher Ghoul with Sultai Emissary: the latter adds two cards to the graveyard when both bodies die, while the first only adds one (and none, when it dies for the first time).

What is the consensus on Will of the Naga as I have not seen it mentioned even once. At first I thought it was unplayable but after playing a few games with it, I really like that it can easily be UU for an instant-speed Sleep. I am I overvaluing it or does the card have some potential?

Frost Breath is better, and even it is not that good. I run it, though.

Quote from Parasitian »

What is the consensus on Will of the Naga as I have not seen it mentioned even once. At first I thought it was unplayable but after playing a few games with it, I really like that it can easily be UU for an instant-speed Sleep. I am I overvaluing it or does the card have some potential?

I agree with you that the card is strong but I don't think it's strong enough to compete with the spells blue has. It doesn't make my 450 but if I had a larger cube, I would likely run it.

Quote from Merovingiann »

Frost Breath is better, and even it is not that good. I run it, though.

Completely forgot about Frost Breath, I think you're right that it isn't playable now that I think about it more.

Quote from Merovingiann »

Frost Breath is better, and even it is not that good. I run it, though.

I've played Frost Breath for ages, and it's a consistently good card in blue tempo decks. I probably wouldn't consider it for 360 card cubes (supporting blue control takes a *ton* of slots). Will of the Naga is definitely worse than Frost Breath - it can't be cast early, and a turn 4 or 5 Frost breath can be absolutely brutal, but I'll probably test it out somewhere. Mid-to-late game, it should be pretty easy to delve away at least 3 cards. One other thing to consider is that it really doesn't work well with blue recursion (Mnemonic Wall, etc.).

I have noticed that Ponder has fallen out of favor in a lot of people's lists recently. Could anyone explain why or how it was under-preforming?

I support a 7 fetchland design. And have the tri-fetchs in reserve.

However, Ponder is just lower on the list as stated. If you are open to suggestions for less optimal cards, Dream Cache is great mid to late game

Ah so pretty much the same reason why brainstorm is bad. I actually used to run dream cache but I felt it was slightly over-costed and under-drafted. I am going to try remove soul in place of ponder.

Quote from Night_Hydra »

I support a 7 fetchland design. And have the tri-fetchs in reserve.

However, Ponder is just lower on the list as stated. If you are open to suggestions for less optimal cards, Dream Cache is great mid to late game

I have also been considering adding in the tri-fetchs, but am not sure how to balance the colors since the allied colors are represented twice as often as the enemy colors. Maybe something like this might work (in addition to khans lands and/or karoos):

5 Panoramas
5 Enemy Guildgates

My problem with this is that both the players in allied colors will want the panoramas, as will the players in enemy colors. However, the enemy guildates won't be drafted by the allied pairs. The other option I am considering is to just not include the enemy guildgates, but not sure if that would be better or worse.

Something else I have been wondering about. I know that many people in the peasant thread don't like to run Invisible Stalker because they find it too hard to interact with. Comparing it to Guardian of the Guildpact, I really don't see how they are all that different. Has anybody else considered cutting Guardian of the Guildpact for similar reasons?

Hexproof+'unblockable' is much more 'uninteractive' than protection from monocolored. You can block it with colorless AND multicolor stuff. Also, the Guardian cannot be enchanted except for a couple of multicolored enchantments. It's a bomb, no doubt, but I think it's more fun that the Invisible.

Definitely did not consider the auras not being able to enchant him. My problem though is that very few of my multicolor / colorless cards can profitably block him. Maybe its because of my 2 card guild section, but he has been incredibly difficult to interact with.

There are a few ways in every cube to deal with him, but if you put him in your deck or see him across from you he's going to be a 2/infinity unblockable shroud creature the vast majority of the time.

That being said he's pretty slow at four mana, making him about as fair as unfair cards get. I've definitely won before with him still on the other side of the table.

Hi there!

Looking for a bit of help with my pauper cube. I have a rough draft so far and would appreciate any advice or constructive criticisms. This is my second time building a pauper cube and the first time around I made it based off of many of the top tier lists around. It was fun, however, we mainly ended up drafting 3-4 color good stuff decks and this time around I want something with a bit more synergy.

Here is what I have attempted to do with this cube so far (keep in mind it is a rough version):

Archtypes - WB Rebels, UW Tappers, UR Spells Matter, G(r) Ramp, UB Control, R Aggro, B Aggro, W Aggro, BR Steal & Sacrifice, BUG Graveyard, GRW Tokens, WBG Enchantments (I feel that some of these may have spread the cube a bit too thin but not sure where to go - add more cards possibly?)

Cut back on removal in order to provide for more creature interaction (still working on this)

Trying to force 2 color decks (hence no signets)

Things I still need to work into the cube:

Trying to make this work in a multiplayer environment (help here would be greatly appreciated)

I want to add a few more artifacts, just not sure where to start.


Cube link:
ht tp://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/17592


Thanks very much!!

Greenbeans1

Welcome,

please keep in mind that we can only suggest things we have experienced with our playgroups and that it can well be that your draftgroup is different.

I would also suggest since you want to also be able to play multiplayer, you add a package of 30-40 multiplayer cards since multiplayer cards are often not that wanted 1v1.

Besides that after my exams are done in University I'm going to post my archetypes thread that I have been working on for some time.


And like Runner said welcome to the community

You can also look in Runner's and my cube (they are in our signature's) for the graveyard(dredge)/token/sacrifice decks

Hope to see you around, an extra opinion is always nice

Absolutely hear you on the differences in playgroups, and thank you for the warm welcome! I've definitely been looking around some of your cubes for cards I may not have thought of. I'm wondering what kind of cards work well in multiplayer? What keywords? And is it possible to keep aggro viable in a multiplayer format? I think this is why I wanted to try to make 3 colors viable for aggro (W,R,B) to up it's chances. Thanks again.

That makes a lot of sense, and I think it's no secret that black has the majority of cards that affect "all players" or "each opponent". I guess the way I want to think about my cube is in the sense that it COULD be played in multiplayer, without it having to be. I'll never know how it truly works until it's played out though. I was thinking about adding more cards with vigilance to encourage attacking, and also evasive creatures but then red seems to get the short end of the stick. I think I might be trying to balance too many archtypes, maybe sticking to 2-3 solid archtypes that each color could fill into instead of the 4-5 per color I have now.

Right now I have:
W - rebels, tappers, enchantment control, ww aggro, tokens
U - tempo/control, flyers, tappers, spells matter
B - aggro, control, sacrifice, graveyard, rebels
R - aggro, ramp (X spells), sacrifice, spells matter, tokens
G - ramp (creatures), tokens, graveyard, enchantment control

and I feel like I might be able to define the archtypes and force them a bit more if I consolidate certain things and go with something like:
W - tappers, enchantment control, tokens
U - tappers, spells matter, tempo/unblockable/flyers
B - aggro, sacrifice/dredge, enchantment control
R - spells matter, aggro, sacrifice
G - ramp, tokens, graveyard/dredge

so I think I'll cut the rebel package, make tokens GW to dilute red less.

I feel like my "tappers" for UW can fold into both white aggro and blue tempo, clearing the blockers to push damage.

I guess also I really want to know if anyone has experience with trying to force 2 color decks. Do I cut the majority of multicolored cards? Not put any dual lands or fixing outside of green?

Thanks for the advice so far folks