Well I've addressed that I think Nekrataal is better in a vacuum (esp given that I have not run Bone Shredder in any iteration of my cube), I think that if you're going to run a Pox subtheme then it's probably worthwhile to trade Nekrataal down for Bone Shredder so that you can get other 4-drops in. As a matter of fact, even if you're not running a Pox subtheme I think there are appropriate times to trade Nekrataal down, simply because black's 3-drops are very bad, while it's 4-drops are very good.
Yes. I don't know whether it's objectively right in a vacuum (although my gut says yes), but we don't really cube in a vacuum anymore, and I think those 4 represent a diverse variety of powers/abilities and support various interesting archetypes. I used to be really down on Bone Shredder but now I think I would rather have Bone Shredder over Nekrataal, just because Bone Shredder fits into the 3 slot and I'd rather have the 4 slot for more unique effects.
I would run Braids, Skinrender, Abyssal Persecutor, and Bloodline Keeper if I had to choose 4 4-drops in black (and I did), which would be even stronger with this subtheme push.
Setup: One (1) Cube, Ninety (90) Bid Points per player {can use Basics for easy tracking}
Drafting Ends: Each player stops drafting when they have no more Bid Points
Idea: Each card costs one (1) Bid Point minimum, but you can bid more. The bidding mechanism works in that the opposing player may force you to take cards (an ante of sorts), or decline your bid outright but then cannot force you to run out of Bid Points.
---
1. Ante) P1 deals out 4 cards from the top of the Cube stack and lays them in a row. P2 places one Bid Point (a basic land) into the pot for each card laid out in this way (4 now).
2. Bid) P2 can choose to place as many additional Bid Points as P2 likes into the pot, depending on the evaluation of the cards.
3. Choose) P1 has two choices: Accept or Decline. If P1 accepts P2's bid, P2 gets all four cards and P2's entire bid is put into the trash pile (bid point graveyard) and those Bid Points are gone for the remainder of the draft. Thus, if P1 accepts, P2 loses four bid points minimum, even if P2 did not want the cards at all.
If P1 declines P2's bid, then proceed to the Doubling Phase (4).
4. Doubling) The purpose of this phase is to ensure that every card seen in the draft will at least have a chance to be picked up by one of the two players. P1, who declined P2's bid, has a chance to pay double what P2 bid. Thus, if P2 bid 6 points total for the pile, P1 may pay 12 -- if so, P1 gets the pile of four cards and pays 12 into the trash, and P2 gets the 6 points back. If P1 does not choose to double, then P2 gets the 6 points back and the cards go into the trash (cube card graveyard) and will remain undrafted for the remainder of the draft.
A B C D - Ante, Bid, Choose, Double. After these 4 steps, the players switch roles, naturally.
If one player has less than four Bid Points remaining, the number of cards dealt out is the same as the number of Bid Points remaining, e.g. if P1 has 2 points left, then P2 will only deal out 2 cards in the Ante phase.
Draft ends when both players are out of Bid Points.
I'd put in arcane denial or wake thrasher. Wake Thrasher is just a dumb beater that dies to all burn, but it's a really giant threat that can kill really quickly. Arcane Denial is nice because sometimes you just really need one last hard counter even if it has a huge drawback.
Edit: Konfusius basically nailed it (apart from a slight disagreement on Wake Thrasher) his post is pretty much spot on.
I agree with this, including the praise for Konfusius' post. I've been running Coralhelm and Wake Thrasher in every incarnation of my cube and I've never really wanted to take them out. I would probably skip on Mist Raven and put in cheap counters instead. IMO cheap counters > bounce spells because they can be used in just about every deck.
As said earlier, its a bit of an absurd scenario. We're talking about practical impacts, not incremental anomalies that won't matter much unless you have a 0-6 scenario. Anyway, I think what Konfusius said earlier is fairly on point, and comports with my own thinking, so I'll leave it at that.
In theory yes, but in practice in Winston drafting, no it's not going to really make a dent. Many of the cards that you pick up are going to be "incidentals" anyway -- you're rarely going to try to aim for an Izzet deck just because you happened to pick up an Izzet card. It's far more likely that you'll decide to go UR because you saw a high number of U or R cards, which is a result of the randomness inherent in drafting such a small section of a cube. So sure, adding an extra cube card in a guild may impact you 0.5% of the time, but it's going to have a much smaller effect compared with the sheer randomness of the format, the number of cards you decide to Winston with, and the amount of archetype support you include.
I like that you're bringing Arc Lightning in, but are you sure you want to be cutting a 1-drop? You're running a shockingly low number of aggro 1-drops considering your cube size. Put another way, you only have one more aggressive 1-drop creature (counting Grim) than you have 5-drop creatures.
Honestly it doesn't matter that much for Winston/Sealed either. The distribution of cards is so random that an extra two cards is not going to be noticeable except over hundreds of games. That said, I've always used a very anemic "gold" section anyway, so my experience may be different.
My experience in Winston is that the inclusion of single card bombs matters more than the exact number of cards. Adding the Aristocrat, for example, helped RB aggro staggeringly, far more than tweaking the number of R/B cards.
FWIW, I also run asymmetrical monocolor sections to compensate somewhat for an asymmetrical multicolored/hybrid section.
A 4/5 lifelinking flier is for 2WW is something you wouldn't play in your cube?
Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly play that in the current iteration of my cube. It'd just still be only on par or worse than many of the current 4 cost white cards. I would not expect that card to last past summer 2013 in my cube. Maybe even sooner if the power level of cards keeps rising.
Baneslayer has a more secure slot because the 5 slot has very few good non-creature spells. Gideon is insane and Elspeth 2 is not bad, but there's not much else.
I'd probably play Rolling Earthquake if I could afford one. Sadly it's behind Ravages of War and Mana Drain on the list of expensive cards that I'd like to fit in.
Ah, I see. I proxy things, but I don't think R E is worth the cash if not proxied. Powerwise, it's better than the other X spells. But it's not essential by any means, and it'll probably get pushed out of tighter red sections soon, especially if they are focusing on other archetypes like hard aggro, LD, wildfire, combo.
You don't play with Rolling Earthquake? It's easily the most versatile red X spell, you can get CA out of it, do damage straight to the head, and it can be used in all manners of decks (more than RSZ, certainly).
I think it's far and beyond RSZ or Devil's Play.
Btw, about the Monk cut, I do like Monk more than some of the ones you're keeping, but I don't think Monk is a sacred card. Plus, I don't really like the way it plays -- you just set it and forget it. I think its time is coming.
Those proposed changes were thought up when approximately 1/3 of the set was spoiled. I'll certainly get Vraska in, and consider Lolteth (don't currently do green aggro).
I know that Goliath is good, but it's just not what I want to be playing in Green at the moment. The other quibble I have is that you don't exercise full control over when to scavenge, a problem which -- i suppose -- would be partially remedied by Lolteth...
As for charms, I haven't had the opportunity to try them yet. I'm not adding them because I think they'll be super powerful, but rather because they give players a lot of options, which I like. I want to increase Modality in my cube cards. Whether they'll be worth the power drop, we'll see.
Pack Rat <- Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
Ash Zealot <- Kargan Dragonlord
Gore-House Chainwalker <- Ashmouth Hound
Mizzium Mortars <- Flame Slash
Jace, Architect of Thought <- Dismiss
Cyclonic Rift <- Jace Beleren
Selesnya Charm <- Phantom Centaur
Azorius Charm <- Cursed Scroll
Vraska the Unseen <- Genesis
Izzet Charm <- Desolate Lighthouse
Dreadbore <- Pillage
Rakdos Cackler <- Phyrexian Arena
Dryad Militant <- Ajani Goldmane
Rakdos Shred-Freak <- Ember Hauler
Detention Sphere <- Kor Skyfisher
Pox <- Temporal Isolation
Carrion Feeder <- Hell's Thunder
Reassembling Skeleton <- Nantuko Shade
I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. I agree with the evaluations re Survival, Blastoderm, Chameleon. Also Frog theme at the end is best theme.
My 2 picks for underrated are Mayor of Avabruck and Garruk Relentless.
Bidding Draft
Setup: One (1) Cube, Ninety (90) Bid Points per player {can use Basics for easy tracking}
Drafting Ends: Each player stops drafting when they have no more Bid Points
Idea: Each card costs one (1) Bid Point minimum, but you can bid more. The bidding mechanism works in that the opposing player may force you to take cards (an ante of sorts), or decline your bid outright but then cannot force you to run out of Bid Points.
---
1. Ante) P1 deals out 4 cards from the top of the Cube stack and lays them in a row. P2 places one Bid Point (a basic land) into the pot for each card laid out in this way (4 now).
2. Bid) P2 can choose to place as many additional Bid Points as P2 likes into the pot, depending on the evaluation of the cards.
3. Choose) P1 has two choices: Accept or Decline. If P1 accepts P2's bid, P2 gets all four cards and P2's entire bid is put into the trash pile (bid point graveyard) and those Bid Points are gone for the remainder of the draft. Thus, if P1 accepts, P2 loses four bid points minimum, even if P2 did not want the cards at all.
If P1 declines P2's bid, then proceed to the Doubling Phase (4).
4. Doubling) The purpose of this phase is to ensure that every card seen in the draft will at least have a chance to be picked up by one of the two players. P1, who declined P2's bid, has a chance to pay double what P2 bid. Thus, if P2 bid 6 points total for the pile, P1 may pay 12 -- if so, P1 gets the pile of four cards and pays 12 into the trash, and P2 gets the 6 points back. If P1 does not choose to double, then P2 gets the 6 points back and the cards go into the trash (cube card graveyard) and will remain undrafted for the remainder of the draft.
A B C D - Ante, Bid, Choose, Double. After these 4 steps, the players switch roles, naturally.
If one player has less than four Bid Points remaining, the number of cards dealt out is the same as the number of Bid Points remaining, e.g. if P1 has 2 points left, then P2 will only deal out 2 cards in the Ante phase.
Draft ends when both players are out of Bid Points.
I agree with this, including the praise for Konfusius' post. I've been running Coralhelm and Wake Thrasher in every incarnation of my cube and I've never really wanted to take them out. I would probably skip on Mist Raven and put in cheap counters instead. IMO cheap counters > bounce spells because they can be used in just about every deck.
My experience in Winston is that the inclusion of single card bombs matters more than the exact number of cards. Adding the Aristocrat, for example, helped RB aggro staggeringly, far more than tweaking the number of R/B cards.
FWIW, I also run asymmetrical monocolor sections to compensate somewhat for an asymmetrical multicolored/hybrid section.
Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly play that in the current iteration of my cube. It'd just still be only on par or worse than many of the current 4 cost white cards. I would not expect that card to last past summer 2013 in my cube. Maybe even sooner if the power level of cards keeps rising.
Baneslayer has a more secure slot because the 5 slot has very few good non-creature spells. Gideon is insane and Elspeth 2 is not bad, but there's not much else.
Ah, I see. I proxy things, but I don't think R E is worth the cash if not proxied. Powerwise, it's better than the other X spells. But it's not essential by any means, and it'll probably get pushed out of tighter red sections soon, especially if they are focusing on other archetypes like hard aggro, LD, wildfire, combo.
I think it's far and beyond RSZ or Devil's Play.
Btw, about the Monk cut, I do like Monk more than some of the ones you're keeping, but I don't think Monk is a sacred card. Plus, I don't really like the way it plays -- you just set it and forget it. I think its time is coming.
I know that Goliath is good, but it's just not what I want to be playing in Green at the moment. The other quibble I have is that you don't exercise full control over when to scavenge, a problem which -- i suppose -- would be partially remedied by Lolteth...
As for charms, I haven't had the opportunity to try them yet. I'm not adding them because I think they'll be super powerful, but rather because they give players a lot of options, which I like. I want to increase Modality in my cube cards. Whether they'll be worth the power drop, we'll see.