Has anyone done extended art for Mirari's Wake, Oracle of Mul Daya, or Avenger of Zendikar? If not, I'm issuing a humble request. Love all the gorgeous art on here--keep up the great work.
I see a lot of best case scenario and a few notable synergies here. Certainly land tax is fantastic in those situations. It's not even that hard to set them up, so it is a good card. However, it's worst case scenario is pretty abysmal. On the play, it is often a de facto mulligan. And later in the game, it's worse to draw into than many other white 1 drops like mom, swords, path, or even a lion. It tends to go mid-pack, around pick 7 or 8, which I think is about right.
Glad to see there has been additional interest in this thread. Falcone, all the points you make are really good ones. Yes, there is some synergy between the Time Vault and Kiki packages. I originally decided to include both in my powered 360 'brutal' list because I liked that they made a kind of 'untap combo' package. My experience was that Kiki is fun but harder to put together while Time Vault is a top tier strategy. Hardb0dy, I had the same thought when I added Time Vault so I did it without including Voltaic Key due to Voltaic Key being narrow. However, drafters were so keen on Time Vault I was eventually told that it was 'criminal' to not include Voltaic Key! So I added it and I would say it is now the most common enabler for Time Vault in my brutal cube. In my unpowered list, I ended up taking Time Vault out since it ended up being out of the spirit of that cube to have a 4 colorless mana instawin, but Kiki/Twin are still fun in there.
Thanks everyone for the great feedback and suggested combos! I had not included a few combos since they were not quite as 'instawin' as the rest of the list (eg Palinchron combos need something to do with mana), but I like generally being more inclusive, so I added them all. I had totally forgotten about the slaver/ruins combo and that one is well in line with the others I had posted, so that's a great one. Also thanks to wtwlf for the encouragement even though, yes, I know this list isn't all that relevant for what you and many others here are trying to do with your cubes. I just know there is that dude out there who is psyched about this aspect of cubing and I hope it helps them!!
For those interested in exploring combo archetypes in their cubes, I wanted to put together a list of 2-card combos that might be viable in cube. This list purposely does not include fatty cheater combos like Channel-Emrakul since those are more established and are a bit of a different animal. Before you grab your pitchforks, I am fully aware that many people are not interested in adding these to their cubes for a host of legitimate reasons such as (1) not powerful enough to compete with other cube strategies (2) narrow/inflexible cards will table in draft if no one is playing both halves (3) they aren't "fun" when they do come together. If that's your position, I totally understand; no need to beat the horse!!
For those that are interested, 2-card combos can be an archetype if you have a enough of them in your list and they can be fun! Here is an example of a cube that deploys some of them effectively. Here is another. It can be satisfying when you make the deck that can win with Illusions-Donate or Painter-Grindstone. While these cards will of course table a lot, I find that it can lead to a fun draft dynamic. For example, grab a combo piece at the end of pack 1 and hope the other half shows up. Also, knowing your pool may have a few more dead cards forces you to be just a tad more careful with the rest of your deck. We have this type of space in cube, because there are plenty of playables. One fun thing to try might be slotting in a few of the slightly less powerful ones into an unpowered list to improve variety of gameplay.
In searching for these types of combos, this EDH-focused page is an essential resource. I've combed over quite a bit of it, but there is so much there that it is impossible to take it all in at once. A lot of the interactions on that page involve 3+ cards and in general I don't think those make sense for cube, unless there is a cool web of them that can all work together. Things like Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Melira, Sylvok Outcast are close.
I'm listing what I have so far in top 10 style. I have tried to rank these in order of power/viability and will be happy to edit with people's suggestions and improvements. If people have real-world experience playing with these, particularly the more unusual ones, it would be helpful to hear your thoughts on making them work as well as possible. This is a work in progress.
1. Time Vault and Voltaic Key, Ral Zarek, Tezzeret the Seeker, and a few others. 4-7 mana for infinite turns, and in all probability the win. This is an extremely powerful combo package and is a force to be reckoned with in any cube. I have seen the Time Vault deck run the table multiple times in my 360 brutal cube. This has been discussed on this forum before.
2. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Splinter Twin and Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch, Zealous Conscripts, and Restoration Angel (Kiki only). 8-10 mana instawin unless opponent can disrupt it. This combo is a tad expensive, but it relies on a bunch of cube staples so is quite viable and already in a lot of lists. This packages still works great even if you don't run the more marginal Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch. Imperial Recruiter works great with this. More cube forum wisdom here.
3. Palinchron infinite mana/storm count. Palinchron combos are not strictly two card combos since you need a third card to win, but there are many ways to win with infinite mana. Some of the cards that go infinite with Palinchron are already cube staples, and most can be used well without Palinchron. Palinchron itself is no Aetherling as a finisher, but still viable in that role. To go infinite with Palinchron, you need either 12 mana from 7 or less lands using lands such as bouncelands, Tolarian Academy, or Gaea's Cradle; or one of these: Phantasmal Image, Heartbeat of Spring, Mana Flare, Recurring Nightmare, Sneak Attack, Deadeye Navigator, Mirari's Wake. There may be more, please post!
4. Hive Mind and Pacts. 6 mana for win on their next upkeep unless they have the right mana. Slaughter Pact and Pact of Negation are already decent cube cards.
5. Grindstone and Painter's Servant. 6 mana mill their deck. Can be fetched with Tezzeret the Seeker like Time Vault. Grindstone can help support a mill theme if you want, and Painter's Servant is pretty damn useless but maybe can block a Savannah Lions! So requires adding two bad cards, but like Time Vault the combo is very cheap and potent.
6. Academy Ruins and Mindslaver. 6+6 mana on two consecutive turns. Expensive, but creates a sure win if the mindslaver survives to the following turn. Both of these used to be fully cubeworthy, but now are sort of at the margins. They certainly do have uses outside of this combo though, which is a plus.
7. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion. 12 mana. Expensive, but it is an instawin. Both pieces already marginally cubable. Works with Tooth and Nail as do a few others on this list. Both pieces are reasonable in reanimator even without the combo. Mikeaus has some other cool synergies if you can get a persist creature and sac outlet. Also gives infinite mana with Devoted Druid. Cube forum discussion here.
8. Wake Thrasher and Basalt Monolith. 6 mana for infinitely large creature. Basalt Monolith is quite cubeable, and Wake Thrasher is marginally cubeable, though blue beatdown has obviously gotten a lot of help recently with True-Name Nemesis. This combo is far from an instawin as it tends to just get chump-blocked or the Thrasher is somehow killed, but it can still kill in one shot when it works.
10. Tunnel Vision and Vendilion Clique, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Hinder, and maybe others. 6 mana for mill all but 1 card. So it's basically an autowin, but they have a turn still to kill you. Requires just adding Tunnel Vision, which has some synergy with Living Death and other dredge strategies.
11. Helm of Obedience, Leyline of the Void. 5-9 mana for exile opponent's library. Can spread across two turns easily. Just a matter of getting these into play. Helm has marginal utility as a bribery type effect and Leyline can be hate against reanimator not that that is really necessary.
12. Illusions of Grandeur and Donate. 7 mana. Two colored spells, one sorcery, one enchantment. Not an instakill. For example, I got this out in a game once and lost to a Primeval Titan that tutored up the cumulative upkeep every turn. Both cards have no purpose outside this combo, so that is a hit to their cube viability.
13. Mindcrank and Bloodchief Ascension. Gotta get the counters on Bloodchief and the cards suck, but only 3 mana so it has that going for it!
I drafted him once in an unpowered cube draft. One game I played him and he did basically nothing since I didn't have the follow-up plays to support him. The other game though I activated him when I played Vortex and it was gg. So he was high risk high reward in that deck, which was a red beatdown deck, more midrange than truly aggressive. I haven't tried him in a tokens deck, where it seems like the etb trigger would be quite good, but if you go into another color for token generators, it will be harder to get devotion.
The lifegain clause is relevant, but shutting it off two turns earlier with vortex is relevant.
I agree that shutting off lifegain on turn three is a lot better than turn five. I'm surprised wizards hasn't printed a cheap red creature that does this. It would be great for cube.
I think people are underrating this card a bit. The no lifegain clause is quite relevant. There is nothing worse for an aggro player than almost getting there and then facing down a thragtusk, batterskull, wurmcoil engine, faith's fetters etc. This is the perfect aggro answer to all of those and finishes your opponent quicker than vortex if they have more than 4 life. The only hitch is that it won't play well in the 15-lander aggro decks since they won't reliably get to 5. But if you allow your curve to notch up a tiny bit, I think this may be the second vortex. It's a little worse than vortex, sure, but vortex is a premier red card so that's still pretty good.
Whereas I see Confidant and immediately consider going black aggro. Liliana of the Veil and Hymn to Tourach also push me into black aggro pretty easily. I do agree that none of these screams BLACK AGGRO! like Vortex screams RED AGGRO!
Certainly Bob and these other cards can and should lead to black aggro. But Bob often gets trumped by something else early in pack 1 and those other cards (Bitterblossom another good one) get used in control as well as aggro. As a result, the black aggro one drops tend to go undrafted. I'm not saying the decks containing them are bad, but I think the reality is that they do go late. I've been analyzing some Cockatrice cube draft pick data and black aggro one drops are consistently very low picks relative to almost all other cards (like average pick 12-13). You can see this on cubetutor pick charts too. I think in a playgroup of only very experienced players, this might happen less often, but watch your packs when you draft to see if it is happening in your cube too.
1. Can't wait to cast Reckless Charge on him.
2. Lifegain, even a point or two can be really helpful in black to help offset all of its life loss.
3. This seems quite a bit better than Vampire Lacerator. For the one toughness you get a bonus instead of a drawback, and for aggro in a color with tons of spot removal, the toughness is less important than the drawback -> bonus shift.
4. The upside to having zombies is not as high as I would like. You have gravecrawler, which is great, but aside from that, you are basically avoiding sarcomancy damage, and maybe getting extra cards from graveborn muse, which is still not a powerhouse and not great in aggressive decks.
The black 2 power guys are some of the lowest picks in most cubes because people get drawn into other strategies too often to want to do black aggro. I think black aggro needs something to draw people in early like Vortex or Goblin Guide does in red. Bob can sometimes do that but I think still people don't open him up and think aw yeah black aggro today.
Hi Nick, I enjoyed drafting your cube on cockatrice today. I played a RW sweepers deck. Seems like a solid wtwlf-style 360, which I would characterize as a conservative build with few fringe cards, very high overall power level, and low fixing density to encourage 2-color decks. Would love to see you update with cards from Dragon's Maze and M14 like Ral Zarek and Aetherling. Another thing to consider are signets (maybe just a few). I was wanting some more artifact mana for my wildfires and geddons. Obviously there is a big debate about whether they are good or bad for your environment. Some say they make fixing too easy, some say they are not strong enough for 360 power, and some on the other side say that they can really help you catch up when your opponent has moxen. Anyway, something to consider. Have fun with your cube.
Been lurking on the cube forum for a while now...just wanted to jump in and say I love these videos. So many of the cube videos on youtube suck but yours are great!
For those interested in exploring combo archetypes in their cubes, I wanted to put together a list of 2-card combos that might be viable in cube. This list purposely does not include fatty cheater combos like Channel-Emrakul since those are more established and are a bit of a different animal. Before you grab your pitchforks, I am fully aware that many people are not interested in adding these to their cubes for a host of legitimate reasons such as (1) not powerful enough to compete with other cube strategies (2) narrow/inflexible cards will table in draft if no one is playing both halves (3) they aren't "fun" when they do come together. If that's your position, I totally understand; no need to beat the horse!!
For those that are interested, 2-card combos can be an archetype if you have a enough of them in your list and they can be fun! Here is an example of a cube that deploys some of them effectively. Here is another. It can be satisfying when you make the deck that can win with Illusions-Donate or Painter-Grindstone. While these cards will of course table a lot, I find that it can lead to a fun draft dynamic. For example, grab a combo piece at the end of pack 1 and hope the other half shows up. Also, knowing your pool may have a few more dead cards forces you to be just a tad more careful with the rest of your deck. We have this type of space in cube, because there are plenty of playables. One fun thing to try might be slotting in a few of the slightly less powerful ones into an unpowered list to improve variety of gameplay.
In searching for these types of combos, this EDH-focused page is an essential resource. I've combed over quite a bit of it, but there is so much there that it is impossible to take it all in at once. A lot of the interactions on that page involve 3+ cards and in general I don't think those make sense for cube, unless there is a cool web of them that can all work together. Things like Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Melira, Sylvok Outcast are close.
I'm listing what I have so far in top 10 style. I have tried to rank these in order of power/viability and will be happy to edit with people's suggestions and improvements. If people have real-world experience playing with these, particularly the more unusual ones, it would be helpful to hear your thoughts on making them work as well as possible. This is a work in progress.
1. Time Vault and Voltaic Key, Ral Zarek, Tezzeret the Seeker, and a few others. 4-7 mana for infinite turns, and in all probability the win. This is an extremely powerful combo package and is a force to be reckoned with in any cube. I have seen the Time Vault deck run the table multiple times in my 360 brutal cube. This has been discussed on this forum before.
2. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Splinter Twin and Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch, Zealous Conscripts, and Restoration Angel (Kiki only). 8-10 mana instawin unless opponent can disrupt it. This combo is a tad expensive, but it relies on a bunch of cube staples so is quite viable and already in a lot of lists. This packages still works great even if you don't run the more marginal Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch. Imperial Recruiter works great with this. More cube forum wisdom here.
3. Palinchron infinite mana/storm count. Palinchron combos are not strictly two card combos since you need a third card to win, but there are many ways to win with infinite mana. Some of the cards that go infinite with Palinchron are already cube staples, and most can be used well without Palinchron. Palinchron itself is no Aetherling as a finisher, but still viable in that role. To go infinite with Palinchron, you need either 12 mana from 7 or less lands using lands such as bouncelands, Tolarian Academy, or Gaea's Cradle; or one of these: Phantasmal Image, Heartbeat of Spring, Mana Flare, Recurring Nightmare, Sneak Attack, Deadeye Navigator, Mirari's Wake. There may be more, please post!
4. Hive Mind and Pacts. 6 mana for win on their next upkeep unless they have the right mana. Slaughter Pact and Pact of Negation are already decent cube cards.
5. Grindstone and Painter's Servant. 6 mana mill their deck. Can be fetched with Tezzeret the Seeker like Time Vault. Grindstone can help support a mill theme if you want, and Painter's Servant is pretty damn useless but maybe can block a Savannah Lions! So requires adding two bad cards, but like Time Vault the combo is very cheap and potent.
6. Academy Ruins and Mindslaver. 6+6 mana on two consecutive turns. Expensive, but creates a sure win if the mindslaver survives to the following turn. Both of these used to be fully cubeworthy, but now are sort of at the margins. They certainly do have uses outside of this combo though, which is a plus.
7. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion. 12 mana. Expensive, but it is an instawin. Both pieces already marginally cubable. Works with Tooth and Nail as do a few others on this list. Both pieces are reasonable in reanimator even without the combo. Mikeaus has some other cool synergies if you can get a persist creature and sac outlet. Also gives infinite mana with Devoted Druid. Cube forum discussion here.
8. Wake Thrasher and Basalt Monolith. 6 mana for infinitely large creature. Basalt Monolith is quite cubeable, and Wake Thrasher is marginally cubeable, though blue beatdown has obviously gotten a lot of help recently with True-Name Nemesis. This combo is far from an instawin as it tends to just get chump-blocked or the Thrasher is somehow killed, but it can still kill in one shot when it works.
9. Dark Depths and Vampire Hexmage, Hex Parasite, Aether Snap, or Thespian's Stage. Great deal for a land drop and a few mana. Not instawin, but 20/20 indestructible flier is pretty good! Vampire Hexmage is already cubeable, which is nice.
10. Tunnel Vision and Vendilion Clique, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Hinder, and maybe others. 6 mana for mill all but 1 card. So it's basically an autowin, but they have a turn still to kill you. Requires just adding Tunnel Vision, which has some synergy with Living Death and other dredge strategies.
11. Helm of Obedience, Leyline of the Void. 5-9 mana for exile opponent's library. Can spread across two turns easily. Just a matter of getting these into play. Helm has marginal utility as a bribery type effect and Leyline can be hate against reanimator not that that is really necessary.
12. Illusions of Grandeur and Donate. 7 mana. Two colored spells, one sorcery, one enchantment. Not an instakill. For example, I got this out in a game once and lost to a Primeval Titan that tutored up the cumulative upkeep every turn. Both cards have no purpose outside this combo, so that is a hit to their cube viability.
13. Mindcrank and Bloodchief Ascension. Gotta get the counters on Bloodchief and the cards suck, but only 3 mana so it has that going for it!
14. (Honorable mention). Channel Fireball. It's a classic!
Going deep: A few other combos or packages that I think are worse than the ones above but maybe they have merits I have missed or would work in a combo-centric cube:
Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond
Laboratory Maniac and Demonic Consultation, Paradigm Shift, or Thought Lash
Stasis and Gush, Chronatog, Ral Zarek, Vedalken Mastermind
Wound Reflection and Blood Tribute
Time Sieve and Thopter Assembly
Squirrel Nest and Earthcraft
Staff of Domination and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, or Metalworker.
Kaervek's Spite and Barren Glory
Stuffy Doll and Guilty Conscience
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and Curiosity, Keen Sense, Ophidian Eye, Snake Umbra
Quillspike and Devoted Druid
Near-Death Experience and Channel, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Worship
I agree that shutting off lifegain on turn three is a lot better than turn five. I'm surprised wizards hasn't printed a cheap red creature that does this. It would be great for cube.
Certainly Bob and these other cards can and should lead to black aggro. But Bob often gets trumped by something else early in pack 1 and those other cards (Bitterblossom another good one) get used in control as well as aggro. As a result, the black aggro one drops tend to go undrafted. I'm not saying the decks containing them are bad, but I think the reality is that they do go late. I've been analyzing some Cockatrice cube draft pick data and black aggro one drops are consistently very low picks relative to almost all other cards (like average pick 12-13). You can see this on cubetutor pick charts too. I think in a playgroup of only very experienced players, this might happen less often, but watch your packs when you draft to see if it is happening in your cube too.
1. Can't wait to cast Reckless Charge on him.
2. Lifegain, even a point or two can be really helpful in black to help offset all of its life loss.
3. This seems quite a bit better than Vampire Lacerator. For the one toughness you get a bonus instead of a drawback, and for aggro in a color with tons of spot removal, the toughness is less important than the drawback -> bonus shift.
4. The upside to having zombies is not as high as I would like. You have gravecrawler, which is great, but aside from that, you are basically avoiding sarcomancy damage, and maybe getting extra cards from graveborn muse, which is still not a powerhouse and not great in aggressive decks.
The black 2 power guys are some of the lowest picks in most cubes because people get drawn into other strategies too often to want to do black aggro. I think black aggro needs something to draw people in early like Vortex or Goblin Guide does in red. Bob can sometimes do that but I think still people don't open him up and think aw yeah black aggro today.