I am looking for ways to enable combo decks in my cube. I already have the Splinter Twin Combo and I really like the idea of having the Melira Combo. There are alsovariousthreads discussing Storm Combo.
I'd like to have a Storm-like archetype running around, but I'm aware that this could be a tough (and almost parasitic) archetype to implement. After watching many people draft the Unpowered MODO Cube, I've realized that the centerpieces of that deck are the mana doubling cards: Mirari's Wake and Heartbeat of Spring (almost always with Palinchron as a followup). So I thought: what if I try to "seed" this archetype into my cube, using this cards as a fulcrum?
Other possible redundant effects: High Tide seems like the best next one. Vernal Bloom and Crypt Ghastmay be decent. Keeper of Progenitus doesn't seem very good, I think. There is also Vorinclex, which is maybe fine on its own (but probably worse than the other usual suspects). Mana Reflection is probably overkill.
Cards that untap lands: Turnabout is just amazing in this regard. Early Harvest is a fine card, but probably not good enough (since I perceive these decks to be some kind of 4 or 5 color monstrosity, with lots of dual lands). Time Spiral is obviously bonkers, and so is Palinchron. Frantic Search looks very good in this archetype, and Cloud of Faeries may also earn a spot. I love Rude Awakening, and it works in this archetype too. Reality Spasm is probably not good enough. Some backup light sources are out of my budget, although they can go infinite with Capsize.
Notable Omissions: most of the cards I mentioned have some use outside combo; by focusing on the mana doublers, I'm hoping to avoid things like Seething Song, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond and the storm cards (maybe with one or two exceptions :D).
...everything else: the goal here is to support combo-like decks in a big list (~720) using as few parasitic cards as possible. I tried to find cards that synergize with the Wake-like enchantments (which can, IMO, themselves have its uses in a deck full of splashy plays like, for instance, some random Eldrazi) and are not useless outside this archetype, because this feels like the most organic way to support a kind-of-storm-deck-but-not-exactly-more-like-a-Rube-Goldberg-machine-type-deck. Thoughts? Suggestions? Anything I'm missing? Any feedback is appreciated!
I would first preface that making mana for the sake of making mana isn't good in the cube. At least in my experiences. You want to encourage combo, give it something to do. Powered lists run Tinker, as it exploits Tinker --> big stuff. I've been running Show and Tell with solid success. You can also run Sneak Attack. A few users have ventured into storm combo.
The issue with these cards is the whole "what the hell am I doing with this mana?" situation. I found Wake to be worthless for some time because the cost-to-power ratio of newer cards just outclass this thing. Heartbeat and Mana Flare want to build into something. You could honestly just use the mana to drop big boom booms turn 4 or 5 (8 drops and things), but even that is gimmicky.
Unlike constructed, the consistency of singleton being about to filter the deck and durdling up a storm (see: brainstorm, ponder, ritual, tutors, moxes, etc) just isn't there. This defeats a lot of true combo designs. Similarly, you need to draft these cards. That's very very difficult. Think about the odds of drafting a pure burn deck. At least that is somewhat straightforward (cards directly aid strategy). Ramp-combo is extremely difficult to recreate because a lot of these cards are pointless in isolation. Even if you were to include all the "you now make oodles of mana" cards, you need appropriate mana sinks and synergy between the other drafted cards.
The worst thing to point out is the following: even if you defy the odds of drafting and assembling this deck archetype, you're a lone counterspell or discard effect from punting. IMO, this archetype for cube is much too fragile.
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I mean, hell, we're all on a forum for something that most people would describe as a "children's card game"...do what makes you happy. You are never too old to enjoy yourself.
Yeah, I love turning opponents to piles of ash with big X spells, but I don't run any of these cards in my 540. Now, with 15ish more cards per color maybe there is room for them, but I since the cheaper two benefit your opponent first (most likely), I would hesitate to ever main deck them except against fast aggro decks who might have nearly empty hands by the time I cast the mana booster.
I don't like any of these cards a great deal, regardless of size. I never found with Mirari's Wake that I would be reliably able to abuse its mana boost; a deck capable of doing so on a regular basis actively requires the card to be in play, else all the expensive cards are blanks, other than X spells, which are dubious in any case a lot of the time. To take advantage of both its abilities, which have little synergy, you need expensive token generator spells. Increased Devotion, Entreat the Angels and Decree of Justice are three examples, but those aren't effects that I want to including in multiples in my cube and possibly only Entreat is nearly good enough for 360. You don't auto-win by having 12 mana available next turn. The effect comes too late to be relevant, and a deck built to take advantage of the very expensive pump is highly dissimilar to one built to profit from the mana boost. Add to the equation the ridiculous number of good Selesnya cards and I would not personally play Wake at any size Cube I would realistically make, because I just don't rate the effect at that price point. It will not ever be useful to any deck we will build, so there's little point to its inclusion.
Theorycrafting, if we had 2-3 functional reprints of Wake in green, for example, it would be a lot more interesting to us; it would be possible to draft a more reliable and congruent deck around the effect.
A deck running all three of these cards in the OP for redundancy might be quite good, but the act of giving my opponents first access to the mana with the other two non-Wake cards is risky at least. I prefer Heart and Flare to Wake, because I could feasibly build a good deck around being able to reach 6+ mana on Turn 4. I'd still rather run another mana elf or rock.
I also tested Crypt Ghast recently and it's going to be cut, it is pretty bad. For the same reasons as above. And that card at least gives me the mana boost at a more relevant point, and it gives me a bad body and Extort, but it wasn't enough in the end.
Mirari's Wake is a beating, but it requires the correct deck/matchup to be good. Mans dorks accelerating into it is insane, since you just power out threats way quicker than your oppt (and now have 2/2 mans dorks). I recently added genesis wave and avenger of zendikar to my cube as more ramp support for these types of decks - your cube and, subsequently, deck have to be built correctly for the ramp cards to shine, but I think they are greater suportera of ramp archetypes than combo.
I have always thought of the super-ramp strategy as really a combo deck, and there are enough tools in cube to make it redundent and powerful.
My group relly likes elf + signet + fatty plan. No it doens't hit the opponent for a million or go off but it is still pretty awsesome. And having the super ramp plan makes the X spells much better(Profane Command, Entreat, Devil's Play)
Also at your size you can support an artifact super ramp plan with Gilded Lotus, Monoliths, Signets, etc. These cards also go great in the Artifact.dec Upheavla.dec and Wildfire.dec. I include teh karoo lands in my cube to support these decks as well and have had good success.
So what I am saying is that you can play decks that have ton of mana for the win, but I don't think mana flare is the way to go. Combo decks are fine, but having redundency in both your deck's plan is huge but it is even more important for cards in the cube to be able to go into multiple decks.
And don't forget channel that card is broken in half in any of there archetypes. This discussion has me thinking of reincluding genesis wave.
I am currently tinkering with that kind of combo deck, but I only play my Cube once in a blue moon so results are slow coming in. I found that High Tide is too narrow because in a typical deck many of your lands are not Islands. Also, a card like Heartbeat of Spring and Mana Flare can backfire bigtime, so you only want to play it the turn you go off (or when your opponents hand is empty, but good luck getting there without dying).
My idea is to run as few truly terrible cards as possible while still giving the players who enjoy that kind of stuff the chance to draft wonky combo decks.
I am looking for ways to enable combo decks in my cube. I already have the Splinter Twin Combo and I really like the idea of having the Melira Combo. There are also various threads discussing Storm Combo.
I'd like to have a Storm-like archetype running around, but I'm aware that this could be a tough (and almost parasitic) archetype to implement. After watching many people draft the Unpowered MODO Cube, I've realized that the centerpieces of that deck are the mana doubling cards: Mirari's Wake and Heartbeat of Spring (almost always with Palinchron as a followup). So I thought: what if I try to "seed" this archetype into my cube, using this cards as a fulcrum?
Other possible redundant effects: High Tide seems like the best next one. Vernal Bloom and Crypt Ghast may be decent. Keeper of Progenitus doesn't seem very good, I think. There is also Vorinclex, which is maybe fine on its own (but probably worse than the other usual suspects). Mana Reflection is probably overkill.
Cards that untap lands: Turnabout is just amazing in this regard. Early Harvest is a fine card, but probably not good enough (since I perceive these decks to be some kind of 4 or 5 color monstrosity, with lots of dual lands). Time Spiral is obviously bonkers, and so is Palinchron. Frantic Search looks very good in this archetype, and Cloud of Faeries may also earn a spot. I love Rude Awakening, and it works in this archetype too. Reality Spasm is probably not good enough. Some backup light sources are out of my budget, although they can go infinite with Capsize.
Card Draw: Wheel of Fortune, Memory Jar and the aforementioned Time Spiral look like they can be good complements to this strategy.
Tutors: Enlightened Tutor has some additional goodies to go and grab. Academy Rector is a fine choice as well. Drift of Phantasms and Brainspoil may be worth considering.
"Finishers": Devil's Play. Stoke of Genius/Blue Sun's Zenith. If you can "go off", then something like Jade Mage or even (*gasp*) Tendrils of Agony.
Notable Omissions: most of the cards I mentioned have some use outside combo; by focusing on the mana doublers, I'm hoping to avoid things like Seething Song, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond and the storm cards (maybe with one or two exceptions :D).
...everything else: the goal here is to support combo-like decks in a big list (~720) using as few parasitic cards as possible. I tried to find cards that synergize with the Wake-like enchantments (which can, IMO, themselves have its uses in a deck full of splashy plays like, for instance, some random Eldrazi) and are not useless outside this archetype, because this feels like the most organic way to support a kind-of-storm-deck-but-not-exactly-more-like-a-Rube-Goldberg-machine-type-deck. Thoughts? Suggestions? Anything I'm missing? Any feedback is appreciated!
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The issue with these cards is the whole "what the hell am I doing with this mana?" situation. I found Wake to be worthless for some time because the cost-to-power ratio of newer cards just outclass this thing. Heartbeat and Mana Flare want to build into something. You could honestly just use the mana to drop big boom booms turn 4 or 5 (8 drops and things), but even that is gimmicky.
Unlike constructed, the consistency of singleton being about to filter the deck and durdling up a storm (see: brainstorm, ponder, ritual, tutors, moxes, etc) just isn't there. This defeats a lot of true combo designs. Similarly, you need to draft these cards. That's very very difficult. Think about the odds of drafting a pure burn deck. At least that is somewhat straightforward (cards directly aid strategy). Ramp-combo is extremely difficult to recreate because a lot of these cards are pointless in isolation. Even if you were to include all the "you now make oodles of mana" cards, you need appropriate mana sinks and synergy between the other drafted cards.
The worst thing to point out is the following: even if you defy the odds of drafting and assembling this deck archetype, you're a lone counterspell or discard effect from punting. IMO, this archetype for cube is much too fragile.
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Theorycrafting, if we had 2-3 functional reprints of Wake in green, for example, it would be a lot more interesting to us; it would be possible to draft a more reliable and congruent deck around the effect.
A deck running all three of these cards in the OP for redundancy might be quite good, but the act of giving my opponents first access to the mana with the other two non-Wake cards is risky at least. I prefer Heart and Flare to Wake, because I could feasibly build a good deck around being able to reach 6+ mana on Turn 4. I'd still rather run another mana elf or rock.
I also tested Crypt Ghast recently and it's going to be cut, it is pretty bad. For the same reasons as above. And that card at least gives me the mana boost at a more relevant point, and it gives me a bad body and Extort, but it wasn't enough in the end.
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My group relly likes elf + signet + fatty plan. No it doens't hit the opponent for a million or go off but it is still pretty awsesome. And having the super ramp plan makes the X spells much better(Profane Command, Entreat, Devil's Play)
Also at your size you can support an artifact super ramp plan with Gilded Lotus, Monoliths, Signets, etc. These cards also go great in the Artifact.dec Upheavla.dec and Wildfire.dec. I include teh karoo lands in my cube to support these decks as well and have had good success.
So what I am saying is that you can play decks that have ton of mana for the win, but I don't think mana flare is the way to go. Combo decks are fine, but having redundency in both your deck's plan is huge but it is even more important for cards in the cube to be able to go into multiple decks.
And don't forget channel that card is broken in half in any of there archetypes. This discussion has me thinking of reincluding genesis wave.
So my current approach is to have some ways to generate infinite mana (Mirari's Wake/Mana Reflection/Recurring Nightmare/Sneak Attack + Palinchron, Mana Reflection + Basalt Monolith and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary + Staff of Domination) and some big mana spells that win the game given enough mana like Blue Sun's Zenith, Stroke of Genius, Devil's Play and Red Sun's Zenith. People who are less strict about fast mana can also use Grim Monolith over or in addition to Basalt Monolith of course.
My idea is to run as few truly terrible cards as possible while still giving the players who enjoy that kind of stuff the chance to draft wonky combo decks.
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