Hey guys, I think I figured out what Wizards should have printed instead of the design abortion we all know as Resounding Scream. For my cube, I might just take some correction fluid and a fine-tip Sharpie to make the underlined alterations myself:
Resounding Scream2B
Sorcery (C)
Target player sacrifices a creature at random.
Cycling 5UBR (5UBR, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
When you cycle Resounding Scream, target player sacrifices two creatures at random.
Indeed. I still run Lightning Bolt, Dark Ritual which, while not a high pick, it is a great hook for people new to pauper cubing (as in, showing them a pack with dark ritual in it alongside other things works well to draw them into the format, as many have an idea that pauper cube is very low in its power level), Giant Growth (which still manages to suprise every time I think it is almost too bad to run anymore). I am trying to find white and blue "boons" that would still be decent. At the moment I am considering either Brainstorm or Ponder to be the "blue boon", as Brainstorm is a draw 3 with a downside (but has the important 3 printed on it, as well as the downside sometimes being an upside) and Ponder honestly feels very "boony" to me (it feels almost like an attempt at a more balanced Ancestral Recall). I am still unsure what the white boon should be, Healing Salve just doesn't do it for me (or anyone, I guess).
For white boons, there's Pollen Remedy which doesn't look like much of an improvement over Healing Salve at first glance, but splitting damage prevention among multiple creatures at least has the potential for a blowout in your favor. I'm testing it right now as part of a land-sacrifice cycle. Or if you're OK with a color-shifted boon you could always go with Sunlance.
I really don't know if it's right that 21 out of 22 of red's spells are removal though, I suppose the problem is that in red commons there's not many other interesting effects?
Where have you been for the past few sets, man? Did you miss the addition of looting to red's portfolio? Looting is awesome even if you aren't using it to set up flashback or threshold or Exhume. Card filtering is almost as good as proper card advantage; nothing feels quite as good as pitching a late-game land or an early-game fatty to draw gas. Faithless Looting was easily the best common in all of Dark Ascension. Volcanon mentioned Dangerous Wager from AVR, but I prefer Wild Guess myself -- it did good work for me at the Magic Celebration event.
Red also has a blocker-denial theme that can give aggro decks a different way to reach for the win. Ruthless Invasion and Nightbird's Clutches are probably the best of these. Act of Treason and similar effects (Traitorous Instinct, Traitorous Blood) are better in limited formats with bigger bombs than pauper typically drops, but can play very well with any creature-sacrifice effects you may have.
On the Aura front, Madcap Skills works well enough in conjunction with blocker-denial and burn. Lightning Talons also turns anything into a huge hard-to-block threat that makes a great blocker itself.
PS to Volcanon: The card you're thinking of is Brute Force. And yes, it is good. It's kind of like Mana Tithe in that it catches many players off-guard; they don't expect that kind of combat trick from red.
I realised a big problem in my cube. I have too less creatures. Actually only about 50% of my cube are creatures. Followed by this problem I can often see great control-heavy decks, that are still loosing the game, because they having nothing to block or attack and their few creatures get removed, because other decks have much removal aswell.
Has anyone else had this problem aswell?
Only green (45/60) and white (38/60) got an Ok amount of creatures, but the other colors need more.
I'm going to start reorganizing my cube with black. I'm going to cut removal spells, that are low on the curve, like Vendetta, Disfigure, Dead Weight and maybe even Tragic Slip, because a deck shouldn't curve with removal spells, but creatures instead. Another point is, that the job of removal should mainly be to get rid of threats and not everything you could kill. This is the reason, why I'll keep Eyeblight's Ending and Rend Flesh above these.
Yeah, the early incarnations of my cube were a little light too, and it's definitely easy to go overboard with the removal in pauper. I think I've finally hit a good creature/noncreature balance but I'm still trimming removal to make room for other cool things like combat tricks and auras.
Regarding your cc4 and cc5 options: the best pick in each slot depends on what archetypes you want to support. Bloodhunter Bat supports the Orzhov extortion racket, but Mortis Dogs might be better for pure B/x aggro. Weed-Pruner Poplar is a good answer to G/W token spam, but if that hasn't been a problem in your format then Rotting Legion or Pewter Golem might be better finishers.
I run Auramancer, but I am not really qualified to comment on this, as I run it due to it being my pet card (favourite artwork in the history of the game), and it is solid but unspectacular. I would say that the "average" pauper cube would need maybe 7 or 8 more good enchantments before it became a widely playable card (can easily be supported if you add a sub theme, but not worth it for a normal cube at the moment, at least in my opinion).
Neat. I currently run 29 enchantments out of 360 cards, including the full Zendikon cycle and a few other land auras that don't see much play in other cubes as part of my land-management theme. After adding a few Bestow Nymphs, would you say that's enough to make Auramancer strong?
Personally I think Aura Gnarlid is too good not to run and support. It really doesn't take that much to support him IMO especially if you have a few of the green enchant land cards.
I've made great experiences with the Gnarlid. In a GW deck I often have between 4 and 6 auras (Pacifism-like stuff counts aswell) and with at least one of them the Gnarlid is already an evasive 3/3 for cc3. Even stuff like Abundant Growth and Utopia Sprawl are important.
OK, I'm sold on the Aura Gnarlid. I'll start looking for room to test it.
Over in the Theros spoiler thread we've been talking about the recently-spoiled cycle of Nymphs with the Bestow mechanic. And it got me thinking: how many enchantments does a cube have to include before cards like Auramancer, Aura Gnarlid, and Ethereal Armor become really good?
Posting it here because the question seems more like a matter of general cube-crafting theory than anything specific to just Theros.
I might have to test most or maybe even all of the Bestow Nymph cycle. (I'm a sucker for cycles.) Since I decided to push landfall in my cube I've been looking for mana sinks to give players something to do with all that land they're playing. The Nymphs, kind of like the Invokers from Legions/ROE, are lackluster yet serviceable bodies early in the game but look like very nice draws once you've got mana to spare. They're not as sick as Griffin Guide but they still look like they're good enough to play a role in the right pauper cube environments.
Having just said all that, however... I still concur with Lanxal on the Nessian Asp being rather 'meh.' It's not like green is really hurting for ramp targets anyway, and I think the comparisons with Walker of the Grove and Sentinel Spider are apt. I'd rather have the Walker (for now, at least) because it has more synergy with other cards I play (e.g. bounce, graveyard recursion) and the 7/7 mode is resilient against more removal. And "Serra Spider" is just a house on its own. I just don't think I have room for Asp in my green section at 360. But seeing the Asp spoiled does give me hope that we'll see something like a monstrous blue Kraken printed at common. Blue needs higher quality ground-shaking fat than the likes of Harbor Serpent and Scrapdiver Serpent. (At least that's what would make my inner Timmy the happiest.)
Yep. Read the Bones is definitely an auto-include. Might even edge out Sign in Blood in smaller cubes like my own: I'm looking for ways to trim the number of double-black costed cards so it's more in line with other colors.
I'm trying not to get my hopes up... but I'd really like to see a cubeable common blue kraken with the monstrify mechanic. Blue needs something better than Harbor Serpent and Scrapdiver Serpent in the Sea Monster department. For flavor reasons. Poseidon wills it!
I also like the idea of bestow for the same reason I liked bloodrush when it was first spoiled: I love cards that can be two different things, especially when one of those things is a creature. With bloodrush I could cube an extra couple of combat tricks without diluting my format's creature density. Bestow would let me do the same thing with Auras.
With Thassa being spoiled I like our odds of seeing some new commons that scry too! Here's hoping we get some new scrying commons in black and red to go with the blue stuff that everybody already cubes (Preordain, Foresee, Condescend). Then again, we might just get reprints of Putrid Cyclops and Riddle of Lightning.
Harrow. The mana-fixer of choice for aggressive decks that play green, since they can follow it up with another two-drop beater. Also makes landfall-pump critters scary huge at instant speed. Even U/G/x control decks like to play it since they can hold up mana for a counterspell and then ramp at EOT.
Most of the pauper cube lists I've seen run at least three of these, sometimes even four, but nearly every list runs Krosan Tusker as a green super-cycler in place of the more lackluster Wirewood Guardian. I've only seen the Guardian run in tribal cubes that push elves.
I've also seen many cubists include at least one Phybrid mana card from each color, though I've rarely seen anybody run all ten:
Another less obvious cycle is the get-three-of-something-for-one-mana spells. Here's the cycle of those you're most likely to see in any given pauper cube:
Maybe you should just check my sig; I finally got around to linking my new cube list. I'm running all kinds of weird cycles in there to support a land-management theme across all five colors. Some of the cycles I lifted straight out of sets (like the Eventide retrace cycle) but I also did a lot of mixing and matching from different sets to create spellshaper cycles, land-sacrifice cycles, land aura cycles, etc.
EDIT: Regarding red's apparent lack of three-mana do/get two of something spells: Staggershock. That is all.
I will keep singing the praises of Perilous Shadow in cubes where control is supported.
Word. I've been cubing it since RTR dropped and it hasn't let me down.
If we can generalize a lesson from the cited examples of Perilous Shadow and Frostburn Weird, it's that dedicated blockers with big butts and enough power to eat little dudes -- or at least threaten to eat little dudes with a pump ability -- are very difficult for aggressive decks to attack into. Beatdown decks can keep attacking into 0-power defenders to at least push some damage through each turn, but when those blockers eat the smaller attackers first and have enough toughness to stonewall or trade with the average 3-drop later on, that's a whole 'nother story. Eating small attackers is another form of card advantage for the control deck. Scaring them away from attacking while the beatdown player tries to draw removal gives the control player a tempo advantage. Either way the control deck gets an advantage it needs to stabilize for the long game.
That's why WOTC prints a few purely defensive or mostly defensive creatures in every expansion: these are one of the fundamental tools of control decks in limited formats. Our format could do worse than to emulate this example. We don't want too many of these blockers because that would make aggro unplayable, but having a few is healthy for the format. Control needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against aggro, just as midrange needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against control.
Blind Hunter. It's Bloodhunter Bat that drains you coming and going! Might be tough to work into an extra-tight Orzhov multicolor section, but it's been super-solid in the past. I'd say it's at least on par with Kingpin's Pet and Tithe Drinker.
@squirrely: Recumbent Bliss > Arrest, at least in pauper. The activated abilities of creatures aren't as important in my native format; shutting down attacks and blocks is usually good enough for white removal spells. Maybe things are different in peasant. But it's something to think about.
Nice find on Fa'adiyah Seer. My 2-drop section is a little packed right now, but I'll definitely pick up a copy of her for my reserve binder. Seems good as a threshold enabler too, which I may explore at a later date.
What do people think of Skygames and Hostile Realm? Land auras that push through combat damage seem pretty cool for aggro and midrange decks, and definitely in keeping with the land-management theme. They're like repeatable versions of Soaring Seacliff and Smoldering Spires, which were both fine in ZZW limited (and will also see play in my cube).
PS:Early Frost seems like a pretty brutal tempo play during the early-to-mid game. Don't know that I like it enough to cube right now, but I'll keep it in mind for future updates.
Resounding Scream 2B
Sorcery (C)
Target player sacrifices a creature at random.
Cycling 5UBR (5UBR, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
When you cycle Resounding Scream, target player sacrifices two creatures at random.
For white boons, there's Pollen Remedy which doesn't look like much of an improvement over Healing Salve at first glance, but splitting damage prevention among multiple creatures at least has the potential for a blowout in your favor. I'm testing it right now as part of a land-sacrifice cycle. Or if you're OK with a color-shifted boon you could always go with Sunlance.
Where have you been for the past few sets, man? Did you miss the addition of looting to red's portfolio? Looting is awesome even if you aren't using it to set up flashback or threshold or Exhume. Card filtering is almost as good as proper card advantage; nothing feels quite as good as pitching a late-game land or an early-game fatty to draw gas. Faithless Looting was easily the best common in all of Dark Ascension. Volcanon mentioned Dangerous Wager from AVR, but I prefer Wild Guess myself -- it did good work for me at the Magic Celebration event.
Red also has a blocker-denial theme that can give aggro decks a different way to reach for the win. Ruthless Invasion and Nightbird's Clutches are probably the best of these. Act of Treason and similar effects (Traitorous Instinct, Traitorous Blood) are better in limited formats with bigger bombs than pauper typically drops, but can play very well with any creature-sacrifice effects you may have.
On the Aura front, Madcap Skills works well enough in conjunction with blocker-denial and burn. Lightning Talons also turns anything into a huge hard-to-block threat that makes a great blocker itself.
PS to Volcanon: The card you're thinking of is Brute Force. And yes, it is good. It's kind of like Mana Tithe in that it catches many players off-guard; they don't expect that kind of combat trick from red.
Yeah, the early incarnations of my cube were a little light too, and it's definitely easy to go overboard with the removal in pauper. I think I've finally hit a good creature/noncreature balance but I'm still trimming removal to make room for other cool things like combat tricks and auras.
Regarding your cc4 and cc5 options: the best pick in each slot depends on what archetypes you want to support. Bloodhunter Bat supports the Orzhov extortion racket, but Mortis Dogs might be better for pure B/x aggro. Weed-Pruner Poplar is a good answer to G/W token spam, but if that hasn't been a problem in your format then Rotting Legion or Pewter Golem might be better finishers.
Neat. I currently run 29 enchantments out of 360 cards, including the full Zendikon cycle and a few other land auras that don't see much play in other cubes as part of my land-management theme. After adding a few Bestow Nymphs, would you say that's enough to make Auramancer strong?
OK, I'm sold on the Aura Gnarlid. I'll start looking for room to test it.
Posting it here because the question seems more like a matter of general cube-crafting theory than anything specific to just Theros.
Having just said all that, however... I still concur with Lanxal on the Nessian Asp being rather 'meh.' It's not like green is really hurting for ramp targets anyway, and I think the comparisons with Walker of the Grove and Sentinel Spider are apt. I'd rather have the Walker (for now, at least) because it has more synergy with other cards I play (e.g. bounce, graveyard recursion) and the 7/7 mode is resilient against more removal. And "Serra Spider" is just a house on its own. I just don't think I have room for Asp in my green section at 360. But seeing the Asp spoiled does give me hope that we'll see something like a monstrous blue Kraken printed at common. Blue needs higher quality ground-shaking fat than the likes of Harbor Serpent and Scrapdiver Serpent. (At least that's what would make my inner Timmy the happiest.)
I also like the idea of bestow for the same reason I liked bloodrush when it was first spoiled: I love cards that can be two different things, especially when one of those things is a creature. With bloodrush I could cube an extra couple of combat tricks without diluting my format's creature density. Bestow would let me do the same thing with Auras.
With Thassa being spoiled I like our odds of seeing some new commons that scry too! Here's hoping we get some new scrying commons in black and red to go with the blue stuff that everybody already cubes (Preordain, Foresee, Condescend). Then again, we might just get reprints of Putrid Cyclops and Riddle of Lightning.
Most of the pauper cube lists I've seen run at least three of these, sometimes even four, but nearly every list runs Krosan Tusker as a green super-cycler in place of the more lackluster Wirewood Guardian. I've only seen the Guardian run in tribal cubes that push elves.
I've also seen many cubists include at least one Phybrid mana card from each color, though I've rarely seen anybody run all ten:
B: Pith Driller, Vault Skirge
U: Spined Thopter, Gitaxian Probe
W: Porcelain Legionnaire, Apostle's Blessing
G: Thundering Tanadon, Mutagenic Growth
R: Slash Panther, Ruthless Invasion
Another less obvious cycle is the get-three-of-something-for-one-mana spells. Here's the cycle of those you're most likely to see in any given pauper cube:
Maybe you should just check my sig; I finally got around to linking my new cube list. I'm running all kinds of weird cycles in there to support a land-management theme across all five colors. Some of the cycles I lifted straight out of sets (like the Eventide retrace cycle) but I also did a lot of mixing and matching from different sets to create spellshaper cycles, land-sacrifice cycles, land aura cycles, etc.
EDIT: Regarding red's apparent lack of three-mana do/get two of something spells: Staggershock. That is all.
Word. I've been cubing it since RTR dropped and it hasn't let me down.
If we can generalize a lesson from the cited examples of Perilous Shadow and Frostburn Weird, it's that dedicated blockers with big butts and enough power to eat little dudes -- or at least threaten to eat little dudes with a pump ability -- are very difficult for aggressive decks to attack into. Beatdown decks can keep attacking into 0-power defenders to at least push some damage through each turn, but when those blockers eat the smaller attackers first and have enough toughness to stonewall or trade with the average 3-drop later on, that's a whole 'nother story. Eating small attackers is another form of card advantage for the control deck. Scaring them away from attacking while the beatdown player tries to draw removal gives the control player a tempo advantage. Either way the control deck gets an advantage it needs to stabilize for the long game.
That's why WOTC prints a few purely defensive or mostly defensive creatures in every expansion: these are one of the fundamental tools of control decks in limited formats. Our format could do worse than to emulate this example. We don't want too many of these blockers because that would make aggro unplayable, but having a few is healthy for the format. Control needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against aggro, just as midrange needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against control.
@squirrely: Recumbent Bliss > Arrest, at least in pauper. The activated abilities of creatures aren't as important in my native format; shutting down attacks and blocks is usually good enough for white removal spells. Maybe things are different in peasant. But it's something to think about.
What do people think of Skygames and Hostile Realm? Land auras that push through combat damage seem pretty cool for aggro and midrange decks, and definitely in keeping with the land-management theme. They're like repeatable versions of Soaring Seacliff and Smoldering Spires, which were both fine in ZZW limited (and will also see play in my cube).
PS: Early Frost seems like a pretty brutal tempo play during the early-to-mid game. Don't know that I like it enough to cube right now, but I'll keep it in mind for future updates.
There's always Snake Umbra if you want a superior Curiosity in green.