MTG Salvation

Looking over my Cubetutor draft charts recently, I was struck by the data reflecting something I'd long suspected: the highest monocolored picks in my cube are strongly biased towards blue, black, and white.


Now, admittedly, this is drawn from a limited sample – only about fifty decks total – and moreover probably reflects my own tendency to move into Esper control variants. And green, in practice, is healthier than it looks here; my two most regular players often draft simic and golgari.

Red, though, is our red-headed stepchild. Good red tables far more often than it should; we've seen four man drafts where all of us are squeezed into the remaining four colors. And while I think this is partly a reflection of our preferences, the bigger problem for me seems to be the lack of crazy broken sexy red cards. Red has small beaters, efficient burn, great aggro curve toppers – but nothing, or virtually nothing, that we windmill slam like Jace or Mana Drain, Liliana or Recurring Nightmare, Elspeth or Balance.

Other than simply forcing red and beating face (which is fun from time to time), what can be done? What cards do you see that automatically put you in red? What should I be adding?

Red lacks very high picks in my experience too, but is an incredibly important part of many cube archetypes. A card not being a high pick isn't necessarily indicative of its overall power or usefulness. If red is getting open, it's a clear and easy signal to move into any one of powerful red archetypes. That doesn't have to be aggro. You will confirm the same by looking at the 'P1P1' votes on this very forum, and in my own experience, it's very rare that I actually take a red card that early. I don't see that as an issue however.

For me the challenge with red is trying to balance its diverse interests by supporting aggro, and secondary duties in artifact.dec, reanimator and big mana/Wildfire decks.

Quote from Goodking »

A card not being a high pick isn't necessarily indicative of its overall power or usefulness. If red is getting open, it's a clear and easy signal to move into any one of powerful red archetypes.

I agree, for sure. Perhaps the problem is that none of my group draft enough (EDH/casual players mostly) to do much moving once we've decided "our" color(s). And again it's the problem with, for lack of a better word, sexiness. If I pick the best black card in pack 1, and the 2nd best blue card in pack 2, am I really going to take a lightning bolt/goblin guide/hellrider/inferno titan over the third best U/B card in pack 3? Or even the eighth?

I realize of course that for experienced cubers the answer is a resounding Yes. But it's just not happening with us.

I've been spectating the drafts in my cube more than I've been playing them recently. Red is the most complete color in my cube but as you mentioned players in my cube rarely P1P1 a red card. The only red card I see my playgroup take highly consistently is Inferno Titan. That said, ever since adding Splinter Twin to my cube a few weeks ago, players tend to force the Twin combo. It's been picked P1P1 both times it's come up, and I imagine that my playgroup tends to think the Twin deck is easy to assemble if the rest of the table don't know a Twin deck is being drafted early on. Although there are other pieces that can make the Twin combo as well like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts, Splinter Twin is the easiest card to play for ETB value if the Twin deck doesn't work. Kiki and Zealous Conscripts are never picked early even though they use the same pieces as the Twin combo.

Quote from noratora »

Quote from Goodking »

A card not being a high pick isn't necessarily indicative of its overall power or usefulness. If red is getting open, it's a clear and easy signal to move into any one of powerful red archetypes.

I agree, for sure. Perhaps the problem is that none of my group draft enough (EDH/casual players mostly) to do much moving once we've decided "our" color(s). And again it's the problem with, for lack of a better word, sexiness. If I pick the best black card in pack 1, and the 2nd best blue card in pack 2, am I really going to take a lightning bolt/goblin guide/hellrider/inferno titan over the third best U/B card in pack 3? Or even the eighth?

I realize of course that for experienced cubers the answer is a resounding Yes. But it's just not happening with us.

Well yes, since a lot of those good black/blue high picks make for great splashes in a R/x deck

I can't remember P1P1-ing any of those 3 red cards, but I P1P1 red cards pretty often. Sulfuric Vortex, Goblin Guide & Wildfire/Burning of Xinye are at the top of that list.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I can't remember P1P1-ing any of those 3 red cards, but I P1P1 red cards pretty often. Sulfuric Vortex, Goblin Guide & Wildfire/Burning of Xinye are at the top of that list.

I agree 100% with these picks.

My biggest problem with red is that it's too insular. People playing red want nothing else, and those not playing red, won't want any of it. That's why I'm a big fan of the more quirky combo/control red cards. It's also why I think the new red draw, loot, and token mechanisms are such a boon. It's probably the best thing to happen to magic in a long time (we just need to wait for some more great cards to appear.)

I always feel like I want a red Llanowar Elves or something. Or some graveyard interactions that are more interesting than flashbacked burn.

Red doesn't look like it did 5 years ago for cube. There are a lot of fun things you can do in this color now, and it can be used successfully in every theater and several archetypes.

I'm surprised by the OP. I don't have any solid data, but if I had to guess I would say red is probably 2nd in first picks behind white in my 720 unpowered, and those picks extend across many different archetypes.

In my cubetutor data, there isn't a single red card in the top 50. But I draft a lot of red cards highly. A lot of cube drafters don't though, so it's gonna skew the data. Additionally, people don't like to mock draft aggro decks (even if they're likely to play them IRL) so that also throws the data on CT out of whack.

But red also only contributes 5 cards to the bottom 50, which means it's not overly represented among the least drafted cards. Drafters just consider most red cards to be support for their primary picks, and they mostly land in the middle of the pack.

I don't know that red has any "windmill slam" cards or cards that you're taking no matter what else is in the pack. I agree with wtwlf on that list of high red picks and all of those are cards that go into decks that I really need to be in the mood to draft.

There's still pretty good quality red picks out there. Purphoros, God of the Forge is one of the most recently print among them that is not purely aggro material. There's also more classical stuff like Sneak Attack and Goblin Welder. And for those who like combo, there's also Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jiki. And like wtwlf already said, Wildfire and Burning of Xynie are still among top picks overall as well.

But in general, I agree that crafting the red section does demand some creativity if you don't want the color to be all in aggro.

Quote from Retra »

My biggest problem with red is that it's too insular. People playing red want nothing else, and those not playing red, won't want any of it. That's why I'm a big fan of the more quirky combo/control red cards. It's also why I think the new red draw, loot, and token mechanisms are such a boon. It's probably the best thing to happen to magic in a long time (we just need to wait for some more great cards to appear.)

I always feel like I want a red Llanowar Elves or something. Or some graveyard interactions that are more interesting than flashbacked burn.

Totally - I love some of red's corner cases. I enjoy Purphoros in cube so much, in fact, that I built my very first EDH deck around him. I also think Feldon is fantastic tho I sure wish he didn't die to absolutely everything. I can see first picking Daretti and trying to force that deck but honestly, I'm not convinced the pieces are quite there yet.

Daretti is great, and I have first picked that card more than once. The pieces are absolutely there for Daretti's deck.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

Daretti is great, and I have first picked that card more than once. The pieces are absolutely there for Daretti's deck.

Do you have a sample decklist handy?

Quote from noratora »

Quote from wtwlf123 »

Daretti is great, and I have first picked that card more than once. The pieces are absolutely there for Daretti's deck.

Do you have a sample decklist handy?

It's an older code, but it checks out: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/230910.

Edit: Here's a newer list I just forced: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/392211. It needed a Faithless Looting or Firestorm to really shine, but it still looks solid. The Recruiter will do work in that list.

Daretti is amazing, he's probably the only p1p1 in red I would take. Maybe lightning bolt if the pack is kind of eh.

Daretti and Sulfuric Vortex are decent P1P1's, but I would never ever take Lightning Bolt, Sarkhan or similar.

Hmm, people seem to rank Daretti pretty high. I wonder if I should try to add it to my cube. I do own a copy, but recently just cut artifacts support from blue.

Most red cards don't scream 'PICK ME!' when you open a pack of 15 awesome cube cards. I would only first pick a red card if I am planning to go red aggro before looking at the pack (the exception being Daretti).

Sneak Attack is probably at the top, but besides others mentioned above I have seen lightning bolt, empty the warrens (When I did storm), Thundermaw, and hellrider.

If aggro isn't popular that really hurts red. Boros aggro is always popular and everyone is always splashing for burn. But for your group you might try goblin welder and daretti. Red is a great combo color with cards like faithless looting and gamble. Storm and twin are also great. Maybe your group would like something like flameshadow conjuring.

My view is if your group doesn't like it, change, a fun cube is the best cube.

Ya, Sneak Attack is another card I'll often take early and build around.

If red is so unpopular with your group, I'd also consider this an opportunity to draft a few RDW-style aggro decks and showing your playgroup just how badly they're underestimating red. That might make them think twice before letting Koth or Sulfuric Vortex table. The red section of your cube does look pretty solid, too, but there are a few notable omissions that would help red aggro decks and most of these are also decent role-players in other decks:

Burn Spells:

Chain Lightning
Burst Lightning
Flames of the Firebrand
Magma Jet

Creatures:

Goblin Glory Chaser
Abbot of Kheral Keep
Ire Shaman
Fire Imp

Some cuts you might consider to help make room: Spikeshot Elder, Reckless Reveler, Kargan Dragonlord, Prophetic Flamespeaker, Forked Bolt, Mizzium Mortars, Chandra Nalaar,

Looking at your artifact list, it looks like you also aren't running a lot of the equipment that really help aggro strategies in the midrange matchup, particularly the Swords. If the Swords are too expensive, you don't want to proxy them, or you're not running them on principle here are some decent cheap alternative aggro equipment:

Trusty Machete
Darksteel Axe
Vulshok Morningstar
Manriki-Gusari

I'd probably cut Zuran Orb, Basilisk Collar, Sphere of the Suns, and Hex Parasite to help make room.

All the same, RDW looks perfectly draftable in your cube. Just for fun, I forced in RDW deck from your CT page: http://www.cubetutor.com/deckbuilder/16851