I don't know why I forgot about Syphon Life since I'm thinking about adding it to support extort anyway. I feel like it might actually be better than Worm Harvest much of the time. IMO, draining two life is better than a single 1/1 token most of the time and is pretty comparable to two worms. I feel like you'd have to get up to 3+ tokens (which is likely the third or fourth casting) to be clearly ahead.
This doesn't even factor in that Syphon Life is only 3 mana, so you can likely start retracing extra lands a turn or two earlier than with Worm Harvest. It also ignores the times when you have to kickstart Worm Harvest by casting it with no lands in your GY.
I haven't given up on Worm Harvest quite yet, since any card bumped down in rarity is like a shiny birthday gift I want to play with, but I'm growing more skeptical as this thread goes on.
now that modern masters has been fully revealed, i'm pondering the golgari graveyard archetype and how best to include it. i still want black aggro and control cards, but i think a heavy graveyard theme will kind of overlap with control a little anyway. here are some cards i already run that work in the archetype in some way or another:
that's just cards that sac themselves, cards that interact with the graveyard, discard outlets. here are some of the cards i'm very interested in from this thread:
just a matter of making smart cuts and making a thorough breakdown of each archetype within black / green i suppose. a golgari mirage fetchland would be amazing.
I think I'm going to wait and see on this one, but I'm excited to see how it works out for all of you. My big area of concern is that for cubes on the smaller side (mine), there is less room to enable specific archetypes. I'm already supporting black aggro, and control, and I'm adding a sacrifice theme, and I'm stretched for slots as it is. If I start moving to support reanimator and a graveyard matters theme... It's not hard to imagine black's color identity getting too diluted.
That having been said, if the sacrifice theme doesn't pan out, or the graveyard theme ends up being totally awesome and doesn't require that many hoops to jump through, then I'll jump on board this bandwagon!
It's the primary reason why I still run Fleshbag marauder.
I recently re-did my black section to have more of an emphasis on graveyard shenanigans, and I drafted an almost mono-black deck where I got Fleshbag Marauder into play six times in a single game. He does some serious work, and if you want to support a graveyard-based deck, I think that he's one of the best creatures for the archetype.
Also, I'm pretty psyched to be getting Epochrasite for pox/recursion decks.
Yeah the key to supporting multiple archetypes is to find and use cards that overlap between strategies - i.e. Syphon Life is both an extort deck card and a graveyard utility card. Similarly Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble have obvious synergy with both extort and token sacrifice strategies, so much so that you could really have a deck using both.
A graveyard focus had made black based decks that come out of my cube resilient and fun to play. It definitely is effective. The unearth guys, especially Viscera Dragger and Dregscape Zombie, have been instrumental. Reanimator spells have also been great. If you've got a dredge card, your Diabolic Servitude never runs out of volunteers. Life // Death has also been a house. The reanimate half is so mana-efficient, and lifing someone for the kill is the funniest. With all of these reanimator spells, black's Nekrataal dudes often go from great to unbeatable.
Quote from citynoise »
I've been forcing BW/BG sacrifice/gy matters decks and I gotta say control decks are often hard pressed to beat Worm Harvest.
I'm surprised at this too, especially since the card seems like sort of a bust in MMA draft.
Its decently strong too, I loved drafting dredge cause all your engine cards like kami, harvest, and salvage would go 13-15th and always wheel so you could spend high picks on good creatures (to get back over and over) and removal.
It reminded me a lot of spider spawning, a fair midrange deck with an absurd end game.
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Has anyone ever tried tortured existence? It's very decent with dredge creatures especially when combined with creatures with ETB effects. Maybe a little narrow though I can't see it being very useful outside of this archetype...
I didn't like it, having to discard a creature as opposed to any card was a really big downside.
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I write about cube and run cube drafts on magic online.
My problem with Tortured Existence is that it never ever nets you card advantage. Plus you invest a card. Throwing away Pelakka Wurm for Bone Shredder early and then throwing away Fume Spitter late for Pelakka Wurm sounds all fine and dandy, but it doesn't happen too often, and it's just not worth the card. To be fair, my experience with the card is from a time when I didn't have a stringent graveyard theme going in black, but still... meh. It's not even really good at getting your reanimation fatty in the graveyard.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I drafted worm harvest in my cube this weekend, I first picked it to test out and ended up drafting an esper deck with 3 looters, compulsive research, fallen angel, maw of obzedat, troubled healer, worm harvest and control cards.
one turn involved me playing troubled healer with angel already in play and casting worm harvest after saccing all my lands for tons of damages. I wish i had taken down the whole decklist to share it but in our 6 man I went 3-0 in matches with the deck and some pretty impressive plays, worm harvest wasn't always relevant, but in slow games, if i ever cast it more than once i felt like it was very powerful and well worth keeping around for a bit.
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My Peasant Cube -420 The Combo Cube
"If there are 2 things in this world I love, They are both Jace, The Mind Sculptor." - Patrick Chapin
how do you deck out? i mean, you get to like 10-12 cards, stop dredging and all your worm harvests make 10 tokens, i'm not sure how you lose to decking before one of you wins the game.
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My Peasant Cube -420 The Combo Cube
"If there are 2 things in this world I love, They are both Jace, The Mind Sculptor." - Patrick Chapin
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This doesn't even factor in that Syphon Life is only 3 mana, so you can likely start retracing extra lands a turn or two earlier than with Worm Harvest. It also ignores the times when you have to kickstart Worm Harvest by casting it with no lands in your GY.
I haven't given up on Worm Harvest quite yet, since any card bumped down in rarity is like a shiny birthday gift I want to play with, but I'm growing more skeptical as this thread goes on.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
3 bone shredder
5 shriekmaw
6 twisted abomination
1 darkblast
1 phyrexian reclamation
1 raven's crime
1 reanimate
2 animate dead
2 exhume
4 diabolic servitude
2 viridian emissary
2 werebear
2 wild mongrel
3 eternal witness
3 yavimaya elder
4 briarhorn
6 deadwood treefolk
7 krosan tusker
5 grizzly fate
3 dreg mangler
3 bottle gnomes
0 evolving wilds
0 ghost quarter
0 tectonic edge
0 terramorphic expanse
that's just cards that sac themselves, cards that interact with the graveyard, discard outlets. here are some of the cards i'm very interested in from this thread:
5 spider spawning
0 barren moor
0 tranquil thicket
1 unearth
7 jungle weaver
0 dakmor salvage
3 stinkweed imp
3 moldervine cloak
6 grixis slavedriver
4 viscera dragger
2 reassembling skeleton
4 masked admirers
2 epochrasite
3 harrow
2 grisly salvage
1 codex shredder
2 mulch
0 quicksand
2 smallpox
2 rotting rats
3 gnaw to the bone
3 syphon life
just a matter of making smart cuts and making a thorough breakdown of each archetype within black / green i suppose. a golgari mirage fetchland would be amazing.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
It's the primary reason why I still run Fleshbag marauder.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
That having been said, if the sacrifice theme doesn't pan out, or the graveyard theme ends up being totally awesome and doesn't require that many hoops to jump through, then I'll jump on board this bandwagon!
I recently re-did my black section to have more of an emphasis on graveyard shenanigans, and I drafted an almost mono-black deck where I got Fleshbag Marauder into play six times in a single game. He does some serious work, and if you want to support a graveyard-based deck, I think that he's one of the best creatures for the archetype.
Also, I'm pretty psyched to be getting Epochrasite for pox/recursion decks.
peasantcube.blogspot.com
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I've raced things like glasskite with it, its fine in midrange mirrors and it is obviously the worst against aggro.
It been playing out very similarly to centaur glade.
peasantcube.blogspot.com
I'm surprised at this too, especially since the card seems like sort of a bust in MMA draft.
I loved it in MMA. Dakmor Salvage+Wurm Harvest or Hana Kami+Death Denied=go deep.
peasantcube.blogspot.com
that's hilarious
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Its decently strong too, I loved drafting dredge cause all your engine cards like kami, harvest, and salvage would go 13-15th and always wheel so you could spend high picks on good creatures (to get back over and over) and removal.
It reminded me a lot of spider spawning, a fair midrange deck with an absurd end game.
peasantcube.blogspot.com
I didn't like it, having to discard a creature as opposed to any card was a really big downside.
peasantcube.blogspot.com
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
one turn involved me playing troubled healer with angel already in play and casting worm harvest after saccing all my lands for tons of damages. I wish i had taken down the whole decklist to share it but in our 6 man I went 3-0 in matches with the deck and some pretty impressive plays, worm harvest wasn't always relevant, but in slow games, if i ever cast it more than once i felt like it was very powerful and well worth keeping around for a bit.
The Combo Cube
"If there are 2 things in this world I love, They are both Jace, The Mind Sculptor." - Patrick Chapin
elixir of immortality is the only one that leaps to mind.
The Combo Cube
"If there are 2 things in this world I love, They are both Jace, The Mind Sculptor." - Patrick Chapin