I been thinking about a potential solution to this problem:
I have 540 or 630 my cards as "locked". These locked cards are locked need to be either strong cards or strong enablers for archetypes.
The cards that are weak archetype enablers used to help provide the archetype with sufficient density will be moved to the "open pool". Suppose I have 630 locked cards, I may have up to 270 cards in the "open pool" that have the archetype enablers - this way it is * possible * for the successful lands, Taking turns etc. archetype to show up but their occurrence is low and they won't dilute the main card pool.
This can potentially make testing new cards / benching cards easier as they can be move from the locked and open pools.
Therefore, my main cube can focus more towards fair archetypes, with a possibility for some archetypes to show up.
I think this can be a good system, but sorting out the cards post draft may be some what difficult - one possibility is put the open pool cards into different sleeves.
I have this card on my watch list. I would add this into my cube if one of these four things happen:
1. Another 1 CMC mana dork
2. Good persist creature 3 CMC or lower
3. Good sacrifice outlet 3 CMC or lower.
4. Strong enabler for another creature based combo with 3 CMC or lower.
This is a card I would absolutely love to be playing.
The melira deck can easily survive without its weakest enablers - it can pivot into a creature toolbox deck that can occasionally assemble the combo. I could seem myself shaving the weakest enablers and potentially going up on creature tutors.
The storm/ reanimator decks cannot function without a required density - one possibility I thought about is going up on cantrips with Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand, Impulse, Opt, Consider all in and shaving the weakest enabler for each archetype making pivot easier and requiring a lighter density of enablers.
The downside of this approach is this require the color pie to be more blue heavy. (I may need to go up on 5 blue 2 color lands to replace this distribution).
This feels like a bit too much of a radical shift for me - The other alternative I thought about was allowing a 3 card duplicate - Fastbond, Frantic Search and Goblin Bombardment. This would allow a lot of the weaker archetype enablers to be cut. However, this is facing very stiff resistance from my play group. They much rather I go to sliver border cards like Mirrored Lotus first, then trying duplicates or removing the color pie balance.
This is a card that has been on my mind for a while now. We have a huge influx of these kicker/ playable x spells, land spells to prevent flooding etc.
I could see this card go up in value in creature decks that play cheap creatures + play high payoffs.
I could also see this as a playable for reanimator/ fatty cheat/ storm decks if they have the require density of creature discard outlets/ looters etc.
Thanks for the write up. This is actually bad news not good news because I'll have to try to make room for - Suspicious Stowaway, Brutal cathar in addition to the 5-6 cards on bench right now.
I'm not surprised about Brutal cathar - The part I dislike about it is how Fiend Hunter can setup flicker shenanigans, but does Brutal Cathar work with Sun Titan/ Reveliark with a sacrifice outlet for infinite sacrifice/ ETB?
Suspicious Stowaway/ Consider both seem really good, but blue cards are too difficult for me right now.
I am happy angur of autumn worked out - I love this type of effect. It helps to prevent flood, helps with a lands archetype etc.
You really find those flicker shenanigan's with fiend hunter come up often? While it's very powerful when it does, I believe it's so rare that it doesn't affect it's average case performance much. And without that rare scenario, fiend hunter and brutal cathar aren't in the same league. 1WW vs 2W matters a lot too.
It doesn't come up much nor the Mimic Vat interaction - which is why Fiend Hunter was cut. But this is also the reason why i play cube - i think its really exciting when these interactions show up once in a while.
Thanks for the write up. This is actually bad news not good news because I'll have to try to make room for - Suspicious Stowaway, Brutal cathar in addition to the 5-6 cards on bench right now.
I'm not surprised about Brutal cathar - The part I dislike about it is how Fiend Hunter can setup flicker shenanigans, but does Brutal Cathar work with Sun Titan/ Reveliark with a sacrifice outlet for infinite sacrifice/ ETB?
Suspicious Stowaway/ Consider both seem really good, but blue cards are too difficult for me right now.
I am happy angur of autumn worked out - I love this type of effect. It helps to prevent flood, helps with a lands archetype etc.
We just cut O-Ring and Banishing Light, so this discussion is timely for us! I can put up with some number of inefficient yet flexible answers, but what really dated O-Ring was the enchantment destruction blowout. There are a lot of great disenchant effects now, and in my opinion your clunky 3-mana sorcery speed removal spell should not also be fragile to a disenchant.
We cut the final Doom Blade about a year ago because of the efficient black answers that also hit walkers. See the Bone Shards discussion - I’d rather have a card like that than 2-mana 1-for-1 creature-only removal with a downside.
Lightning Strike effects are very safe for us. They give red aggro invaluable reach and go in a large number of decks.
I’m high on efficient white removal. We just added Oust. As threats get more and more efficient it has become apparent than 1-mana removal is premium and double spell turns between turns 3 and 5 can shift the tide of a game.
I agree that Languish feels weak - we just cut it. I still like Earthquake to support Boros Moat/flyers-style control, but it’s a bottom half card of a 720. We’re trying the new XBB enchantment sweeper because of its flexibility of coming down turn 3 against aggro and also adding some aristocrats support.
Earthquake is unlikely to ever get into my cube because Fury has more or less taken its spot and with Light Up the Night / Cathartic Pyre are on the bench as flexible red removal. Languish is weak, but I'm thinking if this is necessity for control decks.
I'm down to my last Doom Blade variant - Heartless act and this is unlikely to leave.
Wretched Confluence may make an appearance given the increasing high number of efficient removal spells - good top end for a lot of archetypes.
- O Ring feels like its at its weakest. However, white is traditionally the weakest color in vintage cube, but the way I make up for it is it plays the role the other colors cannot - excellent 1 drops, sweepers, removals etc.
- Languish is easily my weakest removal right now. I'm not sure if I can go down on sweepers, especially for control decks, but on the other hand, the efficient 1-2 cmc removal in white/ red have gotten particular good.
- Light Up the Night / Cathartic Pyre aren't too far off from rate on Lightning Strike variants, but I just have no idea who the cut for these.
- Disenchant feels too narrow for me - The main problem is its not a card I would openly mainboard. The alternative is to play the more flexible removal of Maelstorm Pulse/ O Ring etc.
- Doom Blade has been okay for me, but I've seen a lot of people cut them. I could see myself cutting them if I'm going up on red/ white removal spells.
The only archetypes that actively want Bone Shards in our cube are reanimator and black aggro (Gravecrawlers, Gutterbones etc. that dont mind to be sacrificed too much) and it pretty much stops there. People never draft it for any other decks. Do you think it is utterly unplayable in UB control deck or in a BG value, planeswalker deck with mana elves? I'm basically trying to figure out how narrow the card really is.
You'll be surprised at how different this answer is depending on the composition of your cube - density of must answer planeswalkers, prevalence of cards to recoup card disadvantage and the density of removal.
The second thing is Doom Blade is probably at its all time worst and a lot of cube curators are cutting it. Its slowly becoming a 24th card in a lot of drafts - decent everywhere, but never great. I cannot really answer this either - I've cubed with 2-3 of the best Doom Blade variants for the last 4 years without question. I never really considered cutting them.
The last thing has to do with functionality - For example I play Springleaf Drum in my legacy affinity deck. In a vacuum, it is terrible - it interferes with your Chalice of the Void, its miles behind Ancient Tomb, Mox Opal, but at the end of the day, its necessary to provide fast/ colored mana 9-13 for consistency.
What I'm getting at is Aristocrats is a somewhat weak archetype that has a decent midgame to late game, but is slower at getting to the board than the other archetype. Bone Shards might be a necessity at helping the Aristocrats deck get onto the board/ remove 3-4 drops/ planewalkers/ fatties to win on the board.
This also depends on the prevalence of combo decks - There are cases where you might have drafted a subpar combo deck like Reanimator/ Welder for example that really lacks enablers. This is when cards like Pack Rat / Crypt Breaker really shines because they can help setup for reanimator but also throw away your subpar hand.
I personally still have Roast in my cube + legacy deck. Yes its absolutely terrible, but it is also a necessity
Has anyone managed to test this little nugget?? Our playgroup's experiences with the card have been varied to say the least: it has been either unbelievably good and synergistic or the worst discard outlet/removal spell in our cube. On the fence about swapping this for a good ol' doom blade effect.
This really depends on your cube's composition - If you have Reanimator, Aristocrats in your cube, then I could see the value of this card going up - but what I dislike is this really pushes a drafting on rails experience.
Watching:
Consider, Light up the Night, Primal Adversary, Cathartic Pyre, Outland Liberator, Suspicious Stowaway, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
There are a lot of fine cards on the watch list from this set and previous sets that I just do not have room in 720. I have a new policy for updates; The card must be of one of three categories - 1) Must be a strict upgrades for an existing card 2) Decent playable, enabler for an existing combo that struggles with consistency 3) Must be a significantly better than 50-60% of the cards in its CMC slot/ functionality (Cannot be a card that might be good enough to be slightly better than the worst existing red 3 drop CMC. This is ensure I don't spend excessive amount of time testing cards in my cube that will likely be rotated out in 1-2 years anyways given the power creep in the last few years).
Yah the persist combo enablers are spread across all 5 colors.
In theory, you could construct your cube in a way such that any non-blue color combination in addition to white-black, green-black, red-green and green-white splashing blue as third color have sufficient enablers for the persist combo. (only grixis and jeskai cannot support it fully).
The alternative is you could restrict it to just Abzan/ Jund and trim the non-parasitic elements - but this I find creates a bit of a drafting on rails experience. I would generally avoid restricting persist combo to a selected tri color as it makes drafting a lot less interesting.
From my understanding, this doesn't work with discounts such as Delve/ Phyrexian mana.
The thing is cards like Magmatic Channeler/ Kilnd Field, Bedlam Reveler are all playable, but it depends more on your red's sections composition. My red needs to support polymorph, twin, wildfire, storm, aristocrats as well as traditional red burn. Therefore, a lot of red two drops are non-starters for me.
The part I do not like about this card is the red spells matters deck should be attacking, not defending - it should primarily used burn spells to clear the way for rabblemaster, Swiftswear, Pyro etc.
Essentially the deck drops the aristocrats half of the deck and becomes more or less of a sacrifice deck. I been finding winning through blood artist damage to be unreliable and the card becoming too parasitic.
its not a bad card, but I feel the red 4 CMC are just way too competitive right now,
I still think Experimental Frenzy/ Bedlam Reveler/ Koth of the Hammer might be better for this type of role. They're also have a bit of a higher reward + synergies well with your discard outlets (the first two) and big red (Koth + Frenzy)
I have 540 or 630 my cards as "locked". These locked cards are locked need to be either strong cards or strong enablers for archetypes.
The cards that are weak archetype enablers used to help provide the archetype with sufficient density will be moved to the "open pool". Suppose I have 630 locked cards, I may have up to 270 cards in the "open pool" that have the archetype enablers - this way it is * possible * for the successful lands, Taking turns etc. archetype to show up but their occurrence is low and they won't dilute the main card pool.
This can potentially make testing new cards / benching cards easier as they can be move from the locked and open pools.
Therefore, my main cube can focus more towards fair archetypes, with a possibility for some archetypes to show up.
I think this can be a good system, but sorting out the cards post draft may be some what difficult - one possibility is put the open pool cards into different sleeves.
I have this card on my watch list. I would add this into my cube if one of these four things happen:
1. Another 1 CMC mana dork
2. Good persist creature 3 CMC or lower
3. Good sacrifice outlet 3 CMC or lower.
4. Strong enabler for another creature based combo with 3 CMC or lower.
This is a card I would absolutely love to be playing.
The storm/ reanimator decks cannot function without a required density - one possibility I thought about is going up on cantrips with Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand, Impulse, Opt, Consider all in and shaving the weakest enabler for each archetype making pivot easier and requiring a lighter density of enablers.
The downside of this approach is this require the color pie to be more blue heavy. (I may need to go up on 5 blue 2 color lands to replace this distribution).
This feels like a bit too much of a radical shift for me - The other alternative I thought about was allowing a 3 card duplicate - Fastbond, Frantic Search and Goblin Bombardment. This would allow a lot of the weaker archetype enablers to be cut. However, this is facing very stiff resistance from my play group. They much rather I go to sliver border cards like Mirrored Lotus first, then trying duplicates or removing the color pie balance.
This is a card that has been on my mind for a while now. We have a huge influx of these kicker/ playable x spells, land spells to prevent flooding etc.
- Agadeem's Awakening + other land spells
- Nullpriest of Oblivion
- Tourach, Dread Cantor
- Valki, God of Lies
- Light up the Night
I could see this card go up in value in creature decks that play cheap creatures + play high payoffs.
I could also see this as a playable for reanimator/ fatty cheat/ storm decks if they have the require density of creature discard outlets/ looters etc.
It doesn't come up much nor the Mimic Vat interaction - which is why Fiend Hunter was cut. But this is also the reason why i play cube - i think its really exciting when these interactions show up once in a while.
I'm not surprised about Brutal cathar - The part I dislike about it is how Fiend Hunter can setup flicker shenanigans, but does Brutal Cathar work with Sun Titan/ Reveliark with a sacrifice outlet for infinite sacrifice/ ETB?
Suspicious Stowaway/ Consider both seem really good, but blue cards are too difficult for me right now.
I am happy angur of autumn worked out - I love this type of effect. It helps to prevent flood, helps with a lands archetype etc.
Earthquake is unlikely to ever get into my cube because Fury has more or less taken its spot and with Light Up the Night / Cathartic Pyre are on the bench as flexible red removal. Languish is weak, but I'm thinking if this is necessity for control decks.
I'm down to my last Doom Blade variant - Heartless act and this is unlikely to leave.
Wretched Confluence may make an appearance given the increasing high number of efficient removal spells - good top end for a lot of archetypes.
- Languish is easily my weakest removal right now. I'm not sure if I can go down on sweepers, especially for control decks, but on the other hand, the efficient 1-2 cmc removal in white/ red have gotten particular good.
- Light Up the Night / Cathartic Pyre aren't too far off from rate on Lightning Strike variants, but I just have no idea who the cut for these.
- Disenchant feels too narrow for me - The main problem is its not a card I would openly mainboard. The alternative is to play the more flexible removal of Maelstorm Pulse/ O Ring etc.
- Doom Blade has been okay for me, but I've seen a lot of people cut them. I could see myself cutting them if I'm going up on red/ white removal spells.
You'll be surprised at how different this answer is depending on the composition of your cube - density of must answer planeswalkers, prevalence of cards to recoup card disadvantage and the density of removal.
- If your cube is filled with cards like Bedlam Reveler/ Deep Analysis, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Tasigur, the Golden Fang and your combo/ tempo decks could easily recoup the card loss/ benefit from the graveyard, then a 2 for 1 isn't a big deal
- If you have cards like Soul Shatter, Magmatic Sinkhole like I do, then this goes slightly down in value
The second thing is Doom Blade is probably at its all time worst and a lot of cube curators are cutting it. Its slowly becoming a 24th card in a lot of drafts - decent everywhere, but never great. I cannot really answer this either - I've cubed with 2-3 of the best Doom Blade variants for the last 4 years without question. I never really considered cutting them.
The last thing has to do with functionality - For example I play Springleaf Drum in my legacy affinity deck. In a vacuum, it is terrible - it interferes with your Chalice of the Void, its miles behind Ancient Tomb, Mox Opal, but at the end of the day, its necessary to provide fast/ colored mana 9-13 for consistency.
What I'm getting at is Aristocrats is a somewhat weak archetype that has a decent midgame to late game, but is slower at getting to the board than the other archetype. Bone Shards might be a necessity at helping the Aristocrats deck get onto the board/ remove 3-4 drops/ planewalkers/ fatties to win on the board.
This also depends on the prevalence of combo decks - There are cases where you might have drafted a subpar combo deck like Reanimator/ Welder for example that really lacks enablers. This is when cards like Pack Rat / Crypt Breaker really shines because they can help setup for reanimator but also throw away your subpar hand.
I personally still have Roast in my cube + legacy deck. Yes its absolutely terrible, but it is also a necessity
This really depends on your cube's composition - If you have Reanimator, Aristocrats in your cube, then I could see the value of this card going up - but what I dislike is this really pushes a drafting on rails experience.
- Augur of Autumn
- Intrepid Adversary
- Fateful Absence
- Borrowed Time
- Arlinn, the Pack's Hope
- Bloodthirsty Adversary
- Falkenrath Pit Fighter
Watching:
Consider, Light up the Night, Primal Adversary, Cathartic Pyre, Outland Liberator, Suspicious Stowaway, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
There are a lot of fine cards on the watch list from this set and previous sets that I just do not have room in 720. I have a new policy for updates; The card must be of one of three categories - 1) Must be a strict upgrades for an existing card 2) Decent playable, enabler for an existing combo that struggles with consistency 3) Must be a significantly better than 50-60% of the cards in its CMC slot/ functionality (Cannot be a card that might be good enough to be slightly better than the worst existing red 3 drop CMC. This is ensure I don't spend excessive amount of time testing cards in my cube that will likely be rotated out in 1-2 years anyways given the power creep in the last few years).
In theory, you could construct your cube in a way such that any non-blue color combination in addition to white-black, green-black, red-green and green-white splashing blue as third color have sufficient enablers for the persist combo. (only grixis and jeskai cannot support it fully).
The alternative is you could restrict it to just Abzan/ Jund and trim the non-parasitic elements - but this I find creates a bit of a drafting on rails experience. I would generally avoid restricting persist combo to a selected tri color as it makes drafting a lot less interesting.
The thing is cards like Magmatic Channeler/ Kilnd Field, Bedlam Reveler are all playable, but it depends more on your red's sections composition. My red needs to support polymorph, twin, wildfire, storm, aristocrats as well as traditional red burn. Therefore, a lot of red two drops are non-starters for me.
The part I do not like about this card is the red spells matters deck should be attacking, not defending - it should primarily used burn spells to clear the way for rabblemaster, Swiftswear, Pyro etc.
Benefits from sacrifice/ small creatures:
- Lurrus of the Dream-Den
- Flesh Carver
- Midnight Reaper
- Braids, Cabal Minion
- Smokestack
- Rankle, Master of Pranks
- Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
- Judith, the Scourge Diva
- Grist, the Hunger Tide
- Bloodthrone Vampire
- Spiteful Prankster
- Purphoros, God of the Forge
- Skullclamp
- Evolutionary Leap
- Embercleave
- Liliana, Heretical Healer
Essentially the deck drops the aristocrats half of the deck and becomes more or less of a sacrifice deck. I been finding winning through blood artist damage to be unreliable and the card becoming too parasitic.
I still think Experimental Frenzy/ Bedlam Reveler/ Koth of the Hammer might be better for this type of role. They're also have a bit of a higher reward + synergies well with your discard outlets (the first two) and big red (Koth + Frenzy)