And the card that gave him trouble? Another pet card of mine, Thunderstaff. Good against tokens, gives a bit of survivability, does a decent job at being a token lord.
Is anyone considering creating a three color section? If so what cards are you considering for wedges/shards?
I weep for the cool cards I have to exclude, but the color requirements are just too specific and narrow. Especially since I 2-man 99% of the time, it's very unlikely that someone is in Naya in the draft that Wooly Thoctar comes up, so it would end up being dead a majority of the time. That's not worth it.
At least we would, if you hadn't killed the subthread with your exhaustive list.
So far, we haven't found any true combo deck that we can support. There are highly synergistic deck types, there are synergies ranging from "hey, that's neat" to "ouch", there are kind-of-build-around-me cards a.k.a. archetype/subtheme enablers, but no hard combo.
I think a central issue is that decks don't automagically have five tutors and seven Preordains, so a deck sporting a combo pretty much needs to draw both (all three?) cards to pull it off, and - most crucially - needs to have a plan for when you don't draw the combo. Because of that, even combo pieces need to a) actually do something and b) be semi efficient at it, even outside a combo. Most of the time, that Eternal Witness is just going to valuetown. Because it can do that, it's cubable. Because Thopter Foundry can't do that, it's not cubable.
Besides, Eternal Witness + Unearth is pretty cool too. No infinities, but both cards are at least decent, and they want to go into the same deck anyway.
I felt like my cube needed more combat tricks just to spice things up, so I cut a third of my removal for them and never looked back. Drafting and actually playing is much more interesting now, and I probably won't even bother with prowess. Triton tactics and weapon surge are two incredible combat tricks that don't 2 for 1 very easily. Also, boon of erebos is a newer addition that does work in my cube.
You don't happen to have a cube list or a number crunch of the removal somewhere?
In my peasant cube, I'm a bit over 50%, but I noticed creatures have a much easier time being included than noncreatures. Even the worst Goblin Piker can find its way into a deck, by virtue of being a critter. Creature dense is generally better than creature light, so I might up the creature count a bit.
Up-front card disadvantage, probably needs token cards to make it worth. How does it compare to Intangible Virtue? The latter is on-color, with a slightly different focus, but overlaps as far as spirit tokens are concerned.
Mutagenic Growth is colorless and really surprising Harm's Way is usually decent, occasionally a blowout Momentary Blink and Cloudshift can be played at instant, though that's stretching "combat trick" a bit Kindled Fury could have its uses (typical combat trick drawback though), and there are strictly better versions of it Shelter is a good card
I don't know... combat tricks are situational and set you up for very easy card disadvantage. On the other hand, they can provide immense tempo gain and card advantage if all goes well. We manage to play Madcap Skills for what it's worth.
+1/+1
I'm a fan of Juniper Order Ranger. Slow-ish card, but hella fun. Allows you to go both "wide" with many creatures and "tall" with itself getting large, and you get infinities with persist creatures. Speaking of which, persist creatures are great "plus one matters" cards too, though beyond Kiffies and Redcap there's nothing really... Safehold Elite as the next best?!
Okay, let's run magiccards.info...
Unleash, Bloodthirst, Allies, Scavenge, Evolve, Undying, Tribute, Morbid, Monstrous, Graft, ... creatures bring their own counters.
Basically, you need three things for these kind of decks:
Cards that fill your graveyard
Cards that profit from a full graveyard
Cards that like being in the graveyard
And I'm increasingly sure the last one is vital. If you mill yourself, and all the cards you mill are essentially dead and just there to maybe be fetched back by an Eternal Witness or Unearth, you're essentially investing lots of resources into making your Witness a bit more flexible. That's very inefficient. If you're milling or looting a Reassembling Skeleton, Roar of the Wurm, Spider Spawning, then you're generating immediate value, and you're making your Witnesses huge. That's an efficient deck plan. Ideally you are also "paying" for something by filling your graveyard, i.e. getting additional value off of it. Looters and Wild Mongrel are fantastic graveyard enablers because you get to draw cards or grow a creature while you're at it. Thought Scour is mediocre at best because you're only filling your graveyard.
In that vein, I'd claim that Corpse Connoisseur is good. Straight-up, he's clunky, but not terribly so, and he fills your graveyard with the things you actually care for, and crucially, he's good when discarded or milled.
And I'm growing kind of fond of Scourge Devil, though he's out of color and out of archetype.
I'd guess some of you might remember me. I used to be fairly active in this forum, but stopped playing Magic around a year and a half ago. I'm coming back, though I'll probably be a bit less active around here.
Now I'd need some of you to get me up to date. I left off quickly after Gatecrash came out. What new staples were born in Gatecrash and onwards? Any interesting discussions in the meanwhile? New (successful or failed) archetypes/cube experiments?
What do you guys think about Throat Slitter? Doom blade on a stick for 3 mana, not bad
He's not *that* great, depending on what you do with him. Bouncing a Nekrataal or similar is the dream scenario, but the deck that has many bounceable targets is not the deck that can push a guy through, nor is it the deck that can make a 3/2 connect twice. Unless the opponent has an empty board, in which case... meh.
I've run it, but I've never been a big fan of any ninja. The likelihood of connecting twice is too low for all of them.
And the card that gave him trouble? Another pet card of mine, Thunderstaff. Good against tokens, gives a bit of survivability, does a decent job at being a token lord.
I weep for the cool cards I have to exclude, but the color requirements are just too specific and narrow. Especially since I 2-man 99% of the time, it's very unlikely that someone is in Naya in the draft that Wooly Thoctar comes up, so it would end up being dead a majority of the time. That's not worth it.
At least we would, if you hadn't killed the subthread with your exhaustive list.
So far, we haven't found any true combo deck that we can support. There are highly synergistic deck types, there are synergies ranging from "hey, that's neat" to "ouch", there are kind-of-build-around-me cards a.k.a. archetype/subtheme enablers, but no hard combo.
I think a central issue is that decks don't automagically have five tutors and seven Preordains, so a deck sporting a combo pretty much needs to draw both (all three?) cards to pull it off, and - most crucially - needs to have a plan for when you don't draw the combo. Because of that, even combo pieces need to a) actually do something and b) be semi efficient at it, even outside a combo. Most of the time, that Eternal Witness is just going to valuetown. Because it can do that, it's cubable. Because Thopter Foundry can't do that, it's not cubable.
Besides, Eternal Witness + Unearth is pretty cool too. No infinities, but both cards are at least decent, and they want to go into the same deck anyway.
You don't happen to have a cube list or a number crunch of the removal somewhere?
Up-front card disadvantage, probably needs token cards to make it worth. How does it compare to Intangible Virtue? The latter is on-color, with a slightly different focus, but overlaps as far as spirit tokens are concerned.
Mutagenic Growth is colorless and really surprising
Harm's Way is usually decent, occasionally a blowout
Momentary Blink and Cloudshift can be played at instant, though that's stretching "combat trick" a bit
Kindled Fury could have its uses (typical combat trick drawback though), and there are strictly better versions of it
Shelter is a good card
I don't know... combat tricks are situational and set you up for very easy card disadvantage. On the other hand, they can provide immense tempo gain and card advantage if all goes well. We manage to play Madcap Skills for what it's worth.
+1/+1
I'm a fan of Juniper Order Ranger. Slow-ish card, but hella fun. Allows you to go both "wide" with many creatures and "tall" with itself getting large, and you get infinities with persist creatures. Speaking of which, persist creatures are great "plus one matters" cards too, though beyond Kiffies and Redcap there's nothing really... Safehold Elite as the next best?!
Okay, let's run magiccards.info...
Unleash, Bloodthirst, Allies, Scavenge, Evolve, Undying, Tribute, Morbid, Monstrous, Graft, ... creatures bring their own counters.
Hunting Moa, Ivy Lane Denizen, Living Totem, Llanowar Reborn, Meadowboon, Thrive, Reinforce give counters.
Bramblewood Paragon and family interact with it. Apparently Gatecrash had a minor counter theme too.
Those... are not very good cards all in all. I'm not seeing it.
And I'm increasingly sure the last one is vital. If you mill yourself, and all the cards you mill are essentially dead and just there to maybe be fetched back by an Eternal Witness or Unearth, you're essentially investing lots of resources into making your Witness a bit more flexible. That's very inefficient. If you're milling or looting a Reassembling Skeleton, Roar of the Wurm, Spider Spawning, then you're generating immediate value, and you're making your Witnesses huge. That's an efficient deck plan. Ideally you are also "paying" for something by filling your graveyard, i.e. getting additional value off of it. Looters and Wild Mongrel are fantastic graveyard enablers because you get to draw cards or grow a creature while you're at it. Thought Scour is mediocre at best because you're only filling your graveyard.
In that vein, I'd claim that Corpse Connoisseur is good. Straight-up, he's clunky, but not terribly so, and he fills your graveyard with the things you actually care for, and crucially, he's good when discarded or milled.
And I'm growing kind of fond of Scourge Devil, though he's out of color and out of archetype.
I'd guess some of you might remember me. I used to be fairly active in this forum, but stopped playing Magic around a year and a half ago. I'm coming back, though I'll probably be a bit less active around here.
Now I'd need some of you to get me up to date. I left off quickly after Gatecrash came out. What new staples were born in Gatecrash and onwards? Any interesting discussions in the meanwhile? New (successful or failed) archetypes/cube experiments?
Thanks for the help.
Spider Spawning. Creatures go to the graveyard a lot more easily.
He's not *that* great, depending on what you do with him. Bouncing a Nekrataal or similar is the dream scenario, but the deck that has many bounceable targets is not the deck that can push a guy through, nor is it the deck that can make a 3/2 connect twice. Unless the opponent has an empty board, in which case... meh.
I've run it, but I've never been a big fan of any ninja. The likelihood of connecting twice is too low for all of them.