I prefer Firebolt to Burst Lightning as I'm more likely to get the extra damage if the game drags long with Firebolt even if Firebolt was in my opening hand. The same isn't true of burst lightning as I'm likely to not get that extra damage if it is in my opening hand since I may need to use it.
Fair enough - I don't think the two are that far off on power level.
That's a pretty good list, although I'd place Flame Slash on the list, and towards the top. Sorcery and only hits creatures, but creatures are the most common target, and four damage is a good deal.
If this is going into my cube, I will likely be finding room for Experimental Frenzy as well. Frenzy has been a pretty fun/ live the dream style card but was cut because it was a bit too slow.
5 mana, create a 5/5 creature and a planeswalker body with 2 loyalty.
Each turn it is in play, it gives you +2 card advantage + graveyard synergy.
I think this is a pretty good card if you're looking to support cards like Field of the Dead or Dark Depths or lands archetype in general without going to parasitic cards like Azusa, Lost but Seeking and its a better play pattern than trying to assemble Strip Mine lock/ Lands do nothing where the decks average iterations are too slow vs aggro and too slow/ non-interactive vs combo.
This card is more independent (lower ceiling) and can create a 5/5 blocker, which moves lands into a more midrange deck that can perform well vs aggressive decks but at the same time its abilities are fantastic at supporting the lands archetype.
I probably will be giving this guy a try and cutting Azusa lost but seeking.
On the other hand, 5 CMC is too much for graveyard synergy support.
I like it, shock is a fine floor as long as it has late game value, and scry one is solid stuff. Obviously the face-targeting requirement for the scry is rough so this can never 2-for-1, but vs creature decks any and all burn is usually great regardless, so the late game bonuses are usually most relevant vs decks that don't play a lot of creatures or only play really big creatures, in which case your burn is almost always going face anyways so the scry is super relevant. Burn that can targeting anything for cheap is just so good, so this is probably getting a test for us.
I can side with that - the problem is again not sure who to cut. I would love to add another cheap burn, but if I do, I would like another heavy hitter that can take advantage of the spells matter theme.
This might be difficult to break into cubes that need red to support Storm, WildFire, Aristocrats, Artifacts etc
The floor for this card is fairly mid-high - shock variants are strong. If the opponent has good targets, 1 mana shock is strong. If the opponent lacks targets, 2 damage + 1 scry isn't the end of the world.
I've always highly valued the value of scry - For limit formats, the curve + mana base isn't consistent and scry goes a long way. I've noticed as many as 30-40% of games are lost by red aggro or control decks by missing their 3rd or 4th land drop. I could see an EOT Play with Fire could be incredibly strong at helping to scry for an additional land.
Shock Variants are incredibly strong for clearing blocks/ mana dorks for the numerous rabblemaster variants, especially if these decks anticipating curving into Hazoret/ Chandra etc. They could be useful for dealing the last few points of damage, but I've frequently seen games are won more or less via tempo than straight up burn. I've found that cheap 1 CMC burn (even Forked Bolt or Galvanic Blast) could be stronger than the more expensive Staggershock, Char or Roil Eruption if your cube is still running them.
Lastly, just having access to a variety of cheap spells goes a long way in helping those spells matter/ grindy decks that tries to seek an advantage turn 4-5 using a spell like Wheel of Fortune or Experimental Frenzy to gain a 4 for 1 in the late game. 1 CMC burn is often card disadvantage in decks like Green-Red Lands, but it provides invaluable time to help these decks get their engine online. Scry cannot be underestimated here.
That makes sense - I guess if you don't have a powered cube, its important to find targets for Saga.
I would like to think Chromatic Star would be a nice choice - sacrificing it for non-filter reasons still gives you a card.
I would love to hear how the new creature lands perform, I would love to play them, but unfortunately I haven't found the space for Cave of the Frost Dragon or Hall of Storm Giants or the Black.
Whats the reason for all the artifact - eggs? I don't see Lurrus, Emry or Auriok or Delirium in your cube.
I've been toying with my persist package for a while now - its a very eloquent archetype to have. I would love it a bit more if I can have +1 strong creature tutor or +1 good persist or +1 recursion or +1 sacrifice outlet.
I tested package deals a little bit and the problem is that it adds two decent playables into your deck (say 4x Squadron hawk) and this is incredibly powerful in a limited format where the drafter could take advantage of this and pick up more fixing.
I will add that the 2x ghost quarter package is an exception to this rule - land destruction is a badly needed effect that unfortunately is weak outside of Strip Mine/ Wasteland and adding 2 colorless lands is a strong enough drawback to deck building where the drafter will need to pick up +1 dual land to compensate for the colorless mana.
Here are my comments:
1. Silver border is generally a no-go for a lot of people.
2. Lutri and Lurrus are both very good - I would like to have them in my cube, but I'm just not sure who the cut.
3. Dragon's Rage looks good - but I've been putting her on my watch list.
4. Hullbreacher/ True-Name is cut more for fun/ play pattern reasons, rather than power level - feels very feast or famine.
5. Skyclave and Archon I agree with 100% - no reason why they should be this low.
6. Force of Negation is strong, but blue is a stacked color and its not odd for some good spells to miss the final list. I will say this - I don't have Vedalken Shackles in my cube and this may be a mistake, but I've found blue cards to be over drafted (especially in my playgroup) that getting that many islands is difficult at best. For similar reasons, I could see Force of Negation missing the list because a lot of decks lack the blue spell density. I've kept it in my cube because i have a stronger archetype focus.
7. Omnath was a wait and see - my cube is a bit too full right now for addition but 4 colors feels a bit too much ... (I did like Siege Rhino while it lasted)
I found one problem in particular for this drafting on rails has been green ramp:
1. Its night and day the difference between a card like Bird's of Paradise/ Noble Hierarch and Wall of Roots. Unfortunately, I still need to play cards like Wall of Roots, or else the ramp decks do not have the density of mana dorks to function.
I don't believe the solution is to cut Wall of Roots + Kodama's Reach - I found they were necessary to keep the density of ramp spells.
I tried an approach a while back where i pushed for an lands archetype + creature archetype where I had cards like:
- Exploration/ Azuza for lands etc.
- Growing Rites/ Earthcraft for creature go wide etc.
The theory was that cards with higher variance but higher ceiling could be more equal to a card like Birds of Paradise - Just like how Rofellos offers a different type of ramp compared to Birds. But as you have correctly guessed - the performed decently well, but started to lead the cube down a more on-rails drafting experiment.
However, after recently watching Matt's video - I do agree with some of his key points.
Some archetypes have a lot more dependencies than others, hence why they're more of an "on rails" deck. I don't think there's anything wrong with on-rails decks / strategies as long as every single deck doesn't result in an on-rails draft. I think it's good to have some on-rails decks to draft in you're in the mood for it as long as you still have plenty of options to not be on-rails.
I think I might need to accept some all-in archetypes are on-ralls. But yes, I would agree if it s a problem if they are all on-rails
One archetype I stumbled on that has stood the test of time has been the Fastbond/zuran orb/crucible lands combo archetype.
The only duplicates I run to support it are Fastbond and Courser of Kruphix. The archetype takes up very little real estate. Zuran Orb is the only card that has minimal applications outside the archtype itself, every other card has overlap with other strategies. The deck has many different possible builds. It's optimal build is the best archetype in the cube. It's average build is merely competitive and a failed build is a disaster.
I've found both FastBond + Wasteland to both be bottlenecks in this archetype - I would love to have more redundancy for these two cards. Fastbond is fantastic with Draw 7 + Crucible and on the other hand, Wasteland is just a great pickup.
As someone that ran a black discard package, here is my long answer:
The best 1 CMC black discard that isn't commonly played outside of the 3 is Blackmail - its a lot better than you think. For 1 CMC, I primarily stuck with Divest in powered environments as creature ETB have been a problem + artifact removal has been harder to come by. It was a pretty good card in alot of fair decks.
2 CMC black discard (unconditional) are generally good filler cards - they're literally playable in every single archetype - Combo, control etc. (even good sideboard pickups for aggressive decks) and they're really good for supporting slower cards like Experimental Frenzy, Season's Past, Bedlam Reveler, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger if your cube wants to go in that direction.
My cube needed to support a mix between grid drafting, 4 player drafting and 8 player draft + my environment was combo heavy, which is why I opted to add a heavier 2 mana discard package. They were just good answers overall in a format that often lacked good answers and were good playables during drafts were a much smaller draft pool was opened.
I personally wouldn't play conditional black discard unless your archetype needs the graveyard for Delve, Escape etc. or if you have slower cards to recoup the card disadvantage.
But in general,
If I had to pick, I would probably choose the 2 mana discard spells - but this depends more on your cube's goals.
I probably have few too many archetype packages in my cube - I used to really like the drafting but after you solve the heuristics for these archetypes, its just a little less fun during drafts. But nevertheless, I still really love the game play.
- The persist archetype has been okay from my experience - the persist creatures slot nicely into pod, aristocrats, creature midrange decks etc. I been really liking the deck recently given how rarely you'll never draft a pure aristocrats/ persist deck and it always need to be a combination of all of the above + tutors to really function. The persist archetype can easily function as part of a larger creature based archetype without assembling all the pieces and tutors go a long way. Its very likely I will trim the weakest persist creature, sacrifice outlet and enabler in the coming days - The bar for the archetype has been if the card doesn't play in other archetypes Altar of Dementia, Lesser Masticore - it will be cut. The bottleneck for this archetype is Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap - which are both great in any creature deck an offer a guarantee sacrifice loop. (Hence why we need cards like Blasting Station + Altar of Dementia rather than more robust sacrifice outlets)
- The storm archetype has been really fun in my experience. I'm trying to move storm into 3 variations - Grixis Ritual Storm, Thousand-Year/ Shark Typhoon Spells matter control, Untap Palinchron Storm. Unfortunately, the latter two aren't as strong as the Grixis Ritual Storm. The problem I have with this archetype is the bottleneck on ritual mana and the need to play cards like Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual. (Seething Song and Goblin Electromancer have seen play in other archetypes). The bottleneck for this archetype is Frantic Search and Fastbond which are excellent and help with all storm variations, but are needed by other archetypes.
- The problem I have with the reanimator deck has been that the reanimation spells have been very parasitic - Reanimate has been the exception for this rule - its able to target creatures in you're opponent's graveyard + is playable in any Abzan style deck. The problem is I've been really reluctant to cut reanimator support over the years because of how easily the deck could fall apart if the drafter doesn't get the correct number of reanimator spells and how badly it can pivot into other archetypes.
One solution I been thinking about is to cut out some of these weak/ archetype enablers that are there more or less to help the archetypes hit its necessary density and either cut them to force drafters to pivot more. The other alternative is to allow a 4-5 maximum duplicate rule for powerful, multi archetype enablers so players could pick them up and experiment with more interesting build arounds.
Does anyone want to explain the argument for Karmic Guide? From my understanding:
1. Combo with with Reveillark + sacrifice outlet.
2. Creatures are easy to tutor off cards like Pod/ Recurring Nightmare/ Survival of the Fittest.
3. Works with EOT Flicker.
Do you feel there is a place for this card in Cube in 2021? I'm personally disliking how similar in function the Reanimation spells are and I would like some functional diversity between these effects.
Fair enough - I don't think the two are that far off on power level.
I like Flame Slash a lot too.
1. Burst Lightning
2. Firebolt
3. Playing with Fire
4. Forked Bolt - This has been on my radar for a while - It feels like a nice mix between burn + sweeper. Fury took its place in the discussion.
5. Galvanic Blast - Assuming powered cube
6. Tarfire/ Seal of Fire - This is if delirium/ enchantment support etc is an archetype.
I wouldn't fault anyone for playing any combination of these 6 - they're really not that far off.
5 mana, create a 5/5 creature and a planeswalker body with 2 loyalty.
Each turn it is in play, it gives you +2 card advantage + graveyard synergy.
I think this is a pretty good card if you're looking to support cards like Field of the Dead or Dark Depths or lands archetype in general without going to parasitic cards like Azusa, Lost but Seeking and its a better play pattern than trying to assemble Strip Mine lock/ Lands do nothing where the decks average iterations are too slow vs aggro and too slow/ non-interactive vs combo.
This card is more independent (lower ceiling) and can create a 5/5 blocker, which moves lands into a more midrange deck that can perform well vs aggressive decks but at the same time its abilities are fantastic at supporting the lands archetype.
I probably will be giving this guy a try and cutting Azusa lost but seeking.
On the other hand, 5 CMC is too much for graveyard synergy support.
I can side with that - the problem is again not sure who to cut. I would love to add another cheap burn, but if I do, I would like another heavy hitter that can take advantage of the spells matter theme.
Not a slam dunk, but might be one of the better shock variants. Cheap red spells are definitely good if your cube has a lot of cards like:
Experimental Frenzy
Mizzix's Mastery
Dreadhorde Arcanist
Bedlam Reveler
This might be difficult to break into cubes that need red to support Storm, WildFire, Aristocrats, Artifacts etc
The floor for this card is fairly mid-high - shock variants are strong. If the opponent has good targets, 1 mana shock is strong. If the opponent lacks targets, 2 damage + 1 scry isn't the end of the world.
I've always highly valued the value of scry - For limit formats, the curve + mana base isn't consistent and scry goes a long way. I've noticed as many as 30-40% of games are lost by red aggro or control decks by missing their 3rd or 4th land drop. I could see an EOT Play with Fire could be incredibly strong at helping to scry for an additional land.
Shock Variants are incredibly strong for clearing blocks/ mana dorks for the numerous rabblemaster variants, especially if these decks anticipating curving into Hazoret/ Chandra etc. They could be useful for dealing the last few points of damage, but I've frequently seen games are won more or less via tempo than straight up burn. I've found that cheap 1 CMC burn (even Forked Bolt or Galvanic Blast) could be stronger than the more expensive Staggershock, Char or Roil Eruption if your cube is still running them.
Lastly, just having access to a variety of cheap spells goes a long way in helping those spells matter/ grindy decks that tries to seek an advantage turn 4-5 using a spell like Wheel of Fortune or Experimental Frenzy to gain a 4 for 1 in the late game. 1 CMC burn is often card disadvantage in decks like Green-Red Lands, but it provides invaluable time to help these decks get their engine online. Scry cannot be underestimated here.
I would like to think Chromatic Star would be a nice choice - sacrificing it for non-filter reasons still gives you a card.
I would love to hear how the new creature lands perform, I would love to play them, but unfortunately I haven't found the space for Cave of the Frost Dragon or Hall of Storm Giants or the Black.
I've been toying with my persist package for a while now - its a very eloquent archetype to have. I would love it a bit more if I can have +1 strong creature tutor or +1 good persist or +1 recursion or +1 sacrifice outlet.
I will add that the 2x ghost quarter package is an exception to this rule - land destruction is a badly needed effect that unfortunately is weak outside of Strip Mine/ Wasteland and adding 2 colorless lands is a strong enough drawback to deck building where the drafter will need to pick up +1 dual land to compensate for the colorless mana.
Here are my comments:
1. Silver border is generally a no-go for a lot of people.
2. Lutri and Lurrus are both very good - I would like to have them in my cube, but I'm just not sure who the cut.
3. Dragon's Rage looks good - but I've been putting her on my watch list.
4. Hullbreacher/ True-Name is cut more for fun/ play pattern reasons, rather than power level - feels very feast or famine.
5. Skyclave and Archon I agree with 100% - no reason why they should be this low.
6. Force of Negation is strong, but blue is a stacked color and its not odd for some good spells to miss the final list. I will say this - I don't have Vedalken Shackles in my cube and this may be a mistake, but I've found blue cards to be over drafted (especially in my playgroup) that getting that many islands is difficult at best. For similar reasons, I could see Force of Negation missing the list because a lot of decks lack the blue spell density. I've kept it in my cube because i have a stronger archetype focus.
7. Omnath was a wait and see - my cube is a bit too full right now for addition but 4 colors feels a bit too much ... (I did like Siege Rhino while it lasted)
1. Its night and day the difference between a card like Bird's of Paradise/ Noble Hierarch and Wall of Roots. Unfortunately, I still need to play cards like Wall of Roots, or else the ramp decks do not have the density of mana dorks to function.
2. Playing extra lands is an effect I need for cards like Field of the dead / Palinchron / Time spiral to function but Kodama's Reach is no Uro or Fastbond.
I don't believe the solution is to cut Wall of Roots + Kodama's Reach - I found they were necessary to keep the density of ramp spells.
I tried an approach a while back where i pushed for an lands archetype + creature archetype where I had cards like:
- Exploration/ Azuza for lands etc.
- Growing Rites/ Earthcraft for creature go wide etc.
The theory was that cards with higher variance but higher ceiling could be more equal to a card like Birds of Paradise - Just like how Rofellos offers a different type of ramp compared to Birds. But as you have correctly guessed - the performed decently well, but started to lead the cube down a more on-rails drafting experiment.
However, after recently watching Matt's video - I do agree with some of his key points.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-DrxYm-9WM
I think I might need to accept some all-in archetypes are on-ralls. But yes, I would agree if it s a problem if they are all on-rails
I've found both FastBond + Wasteland to both be bottlenecks in this archetype - I would love to have more redundancy for these two cards. Fastbond is fantastic with Draw 7 + Crucible and on the other hand, Wasteland is just a great pickup.
As someone that ran a black discard package, here is my long answer:
The best 1 CMC black discard that isn't commonly played outside of the 3 is Blackmail - its a lot better than you think. For 1 CMC, I primarily stuck with Divest in powered environments as creature ETB have been a problem + artifact removal has been harder to come by. It was a pretty good card in alot of fair decks.
2 CMC black discard (unconditional) are generally good filler cards - they're literally playable in every single archetype - Combo, control etc. (even good sideboard pickups for aggressive decks) and they're really good for supporting slower cards like Experimental Frenzy, Season's Past, Bedlam Reveler, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger if your cube wants to go in that direction.
My cube needed to support a mix between grid drafting, 4 player drafting and 8 player draft + my environment was combo heavy, which is why I opted to add a heavier 2 mana discard package. They were just good answers overall in a format that often lacked good answers and were good playables during drafts were a much smaller draft pool was opened.
I personally wouldn't play conditional black discard unless your archetype needs the graveyard for Delve, Escape etc. or if you have slower cards to recoup the card disadvantage.
But in general,
If I had to pick, I would probably choose the 2 mana discard spells - but this depends more on your cube's goals.
- The persist archetype has been okay from my experience - the persist creatures slot nicely into pod, aristocrats, creature midrange decks etc. I been really liking the deck recently given how rarely you'll never draft a pure aristocrats/ persist deck and it always need to be a combination of all of the above + tutors to really function. The persist archetype can easily function as part of a larger creature based archetype without assembling all the pieces and tutors go a long way. Its very likely I will trim the weakest persist creature, sacrifice outlet and enabler in the coming days - The bar for the archetype has been if the card doesn't play in other archetypes Altar of Dementia, Lesser Masticore - it will be cut. The bottleneck for this archetype is Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap - which are both great in any creature deck an offer a guarantee sacrifice loop. (Hence why we need cards like Blasting Station + Altar of Dementia rather than more robust sacrifice outlets)
- The storm archetype has been really fun in my experience. I'm trying to move storm into 3 variations - Grixis Ritual Storm, Thousand-Year/ Shark Typhoon Spells matter control, Untap Palinchron Storm. Unfortunately, the latter two aren't as strong as the Grixis Ritual Storm. The problem I have with this archetype is the bottleneck on ritual mana and the need to play cards like Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual. (Seething Song and Goblin Electromancer have seen play in other archetypes). The bottleneck for this archetype is Frantic Search and Fastbond which are excellent and help with all storm variations, but are needed by other archetypes.
- The problem I have with the reanimator deck has been that the reanimation spells have been very parasitic - Reanimate has been the exception for this rule - its able to target creatures in you're opponent's graveyard + is playable in any Abzan style deck. The problem is I've been really reluctant to cut reanimator support over the years because of how easily the deck could fall apart if the drafter doesn't get the correct number of reanimator spells and how badly it can pivot into other archetypes.
One solution I been thinking about is to cut out some of these weak/ archetype enablers that are there more or less to help the archetypes hit its necessary density and either cut them to force drafters to pivot more. The other alternative is to allow a 4-5 maximum duplicate rule for powerful, multi archetype enablers so players could pick them up and experiment with more interesting build arounds.
1. Combo with with Reveillark + sacrifice outlet.
2. Creatures are easy to tutor off cards like Pod/ Recurring Nightmare/ Survival of the Fittest.
3. Works with EOT Flicker.
Do you feel there is a place for this card in Cube in 2021? I'm personally disliking how similar in function the Reanimation spells are and I would like some functional diversity between these effects.