I agree - in the end Divination is much more reliable. Regardless, I don't think I'll be adding in Perilous Research since there are much better cards in the slot, and Altar's Reap is great in black decks that could potentially kill yourself with cards that do damage to you on upkeep's, or cards that will be sacrificed anyway.
Has anyone tried running Perilous Research? I've been playing Altar's Reap for some time now and it's really never been bad to me, and the same effect (but better) in blue seems pretty powerful.
It's fine (not fantastic, but it does decent work), and I've been playing it since the rarity downgrade in Modern Masters. It gives you something to do in response to removal and late game you can just sac a land to it.
Don't forget it allows you to get some card draw off of those early game creatures you'll be playing in more control oriented decks that WILL die to Midrange/Aggro decks. That block and extra leverage you get off those trades are well worth it.
Example; Doomed Traveler is one of the most perfect cards for a control deck, giving you two blockers on the 1st turn. Turn 2 you're blocking with it and you can easily block sac to either Perilous Research or Altar's Reap, next block the same. That's pretty much what I'm talking about and it happens much more often than you'd think with how midrangey a format Pauper cube is.
Has anyone tried running Perilous Research? I've been playing Altar's Reap for some time now and it's really never been bad to me, and the same effect (but better) in blue seems pretty powerful.
EDIT: Also lol at ntDars's "Agreed." in response to metalvolence's essay.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Did you read my essay? Or is that what prompted your question?
Hahaha my bad - I was agreeing with the fact you said it's a great card as long as it is filling it's niche - a fast aggressive deck with no real reliance on lands. The fact that it survives through most red burn and can trade with other 3/3's is huge on T3, especially if you're going 2nd.
And yes, I read it I was probably hammered though when I responded. Nothing better than drunkenly judging pauper cube cards.
I think war beast is a fine pauper cube card, as long as you don't try to use it outside of its one niche: Curve-topper in a super fast, ultra low-curve aggro deck.
2 color pauper cube aggro decks usually can't risk playing less than 16 lands, as they need 8 of each basic land to reliably drop their cards, and there certainly aren't nonbasic lands to help. The result is that low-curve decks find themselves drawing a fifth land that they almost never want. Some extra mana goes into equip costs and onboard pumps like darkthicket wolf, but for the most part, I think after land #4 (sometimes even #3) you can afford to pitch lands to power better cards. (This is even more true for green decks with llanowar elves and clones.)
"Powerful cards for low-curve decks that require you to throw out extra lands" isn't a super crowded niche, but drawing more than one of those cards makes them a lot worse, and they cut into your deck's ability to make use of 4 drops and fireball effects. There are probably some more but these are the main ones in my mind:
All these cards pack a huge punch for their mana costs. The zendikons are undercosted beaters with haste, magma burst is often just "kill 2 guys," looting digs for relevant spells for just 1 mana, and raiders and warbeast are just huge (the difference between a 3 toughness centaur courser and the 3/4 war beast in pauper cube is critical, and very appealing to a deck that can afford to choose the beast.) It's just a question of whether you think a cube has room for all of them to play nice together.
hyrexian War Beast is crap if you have some amount of bounce in your cube
Not really. Against something like heavy blue tempo, you can just wait to play it or even side it out if you're too concerned about the downside. Cards have answers / bad matchups, that doesn't mean they're bad.
Why even reply to Humphrey? Just feeding the trollpool.
Is oversoul essentially a green card? I could consider adding it as one.
When I cycle out Rebels, I'll try to support more auras in White so a card like Ethereal Armor will get some play from me. It can definitely do work just because of the White removal.
Elgaud Shieldmate is good! It's just outside the cards I'd play, but I'm at 360 and this is 450.
Harvest Gwyllion is actually pretty awesome and something I'm definitely going to look into. A solidly high toughness creature in black is always welcomed by me and white lends itself to a defensive style occasionally as well.
@Ghostly Flicker, it's by far one of the most fun cards in my cube. Whether the Flicker Deck comes together or not, it's awesome. It does so many little things. I'll admit that I give 187 creatures a bit of a push in general in my cube with things like Sea Gate Oracle, Gryff Vanguard, Emrakul's Hatcher, Kozilek's Predator, Kavu Climber, etc. getting a bit of extra stock that pushes them over the edge and into the list because of Ghostly Flicker, so it's better in my cube than many others. I've even consider Prophetic Prism just because it'd draw you a card with Flicker. But even in a random blue deck it's so incredibly versatile.
It can do two of the following in any combination:
1) Blink an ETB creature
2) Save a creature from removal/combat trick
3) Untap a creature after attackers are declared for a surprise block
4) Remove a removal enchantment from your creature
5) Untap a land to cost two/rarely fix
6) Reset an creature/artifact like Serrated Arrows, Wall of Roots, Phantom Tiger or something withered (we need more of these type of effects, they're interesting)
7) Trigger an ETB effect, mostly evolve
Some of the options are more corner cases, but I've seen them all come up. Its best case scenario puts it as one of the strongest cards in terms of raw power and its worst case scenario is pretty solid too.
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I'm honestly thinking of getting rid of Silent Departure for Flicker. There is so much bounce in Blue for me already that is picked up much quicker, and usually at Instant speed. If you're building a tempo based deck, I pretty much never pick up Departure. Even people that play a more control oriented draft I usually never see run Departure.
Usually my Blue tempo shells end up being a mix of Man o War, Ninja of Deep Hours, Mist Raven, Curfew and Waterfront Bouncer - along with a whole other slew of support spells. Flicker in that kind of shell seems a lot more potent than Departure IMO, but that might just be my meta.
Edit; I'll also usually have a Capsize lockdown before I even have to worry about flashing back Departure.
Seconded. Don't forget Mnemic Wall either. It's a really solid shell, even without the Cyclops. It's pretty much the only reason why I keep Delver in nowadays.
I think Dragger is actually a decent card. A 3/3 is always a relevant body in Pauper, cylcling is nice, unearth is good for Midrange beats. Dregscape Zombie's a bit more of a stretch unfortunately. Unearth creatures work well with Sac outlets. We need a few more good ones in black to help drag those two up from Borderline to Cubable cards. I used to pair them with Carrion Feeder, Stinkweed Imp, and Rotting Rats in a silly Mono-Black Pauper Constructed Deck.
At some point I'll get the BG dredge deck rolling, but it still needs some support from Wizards. We need another Flashback core set!
It's definitely a good card, but I don't think good enough to really take anything out at the moment :/
So far it's been going really nicely and is a really strong archetype with the right draft.
How often does this fully come together in drafts? It still seems like there are a few relatively narrow core cards you really have to pick up otherwise you just end up with a super durdly deck. Also, what does the ideal (or average) G/B dredge deck in your cube look like?
More often than you think, or at least some iteration of it. It honestly comes down to having only 3-4 of the cards together at once, and let the synergies really go to work.
For example, one player in my draft was rocking Undertaker, Basking Rootwalla, and Disturbed Burial. Just those 3 cards alone you can get SO much leverage out of thanks to the Madness.
Another one of my buddies had Grisly Salvage paired with Werebear in a BUG deck, popping insane Flaskbacks like Moment's Peace or Think Twice really gave him a nice shell, and a 4/4.
But yeah, it's hard to really make out what the "ideal" deck would be at the moment, it needs a bit more testing on my end. For me though, it was really about the card synergy, but I see what you're saying about how you need the right card selection otherwise you might end up with a durdly deck - I definitely took that into account when making these choices. Two cards I REALLY wanted; Dregscape Zombie and Viscera Dragger honestly just couldn't make the cut since they really lacked in other archetypes (In this case, it would have been something like Black Aggro or Midrange) over something like Vampire Interloper. Thankfully so far though, the cards I added are pretty solid picks in other types of decks. The only ones that were kind of iffy were Putrid Imp, and Stinkweed Imp - but they haven't been BAD so far. Putrid is at least interesting in other decks as a T1 play, and Stinkweed is always a pseduo removal that can come back, so I'm not complaining.
Sorry about the rant too, I just thought I should try to explain my thought process on adding them in, but like I said so far they're often picked up pretty quick in drafts, especially if you can get 2-3 other core cards to help create that Dredgy, graveyard oriented deck.
To end, can anyone point me to a good resource for Pauper Cube archtypes? I'd like to see what's available to further enhance my cube.
That's actually a hard one. In my opinion, archetypes really aren't that viable at 360 cards (unless it's U/G Hexproof, courtesy of Al_Z_Heimer), but really shine around ~450 cards. At 360 for the most part I think people go for overall power level, having playable cards that could fit in almost any deck you could splash for. Once you branch out further though where there are less powerful cards, making sure they have great synergies to make drafts more interesting is the way I went and it's been great.
Regardless, I can only think of a few off of my head;
White Rebels (Thanks to Runner)
G/B Dredge (Testing this at 450, working fine)
RDW or Burn (Actually really strong in Pauper)
Black Aggro, at loss of life (Efficient with the right cards)
Green Stompy
Blue Tempo
U/R Combos
These were definitely some of the strongest in my group, otherwise everything would pretty much fold into something midrange-y. I don't know if I agree with having each color having the same creature count however. For me, that really removes some of the personality and identity of each color - for example, Green naturally should have more creatures. To each his own though!
Do you think Delver is worth cutting, and if he is, would it be too much to run both Looter and Courier?
Merfolk Looter and Thought Courier are both fantastic limited cards, and are both definitely worth running. Delver of Secrets, while a fantastic constructed card, is a pretty mediocre limited card because even with slightly more instants and sorceries in your cube, it's still really high variance. It's sort of similar to how Brainstorm is maybe the best constructed common ever printed but is only borderline in pauper cube since we don't have something like fetchlands.
Agreed. It's really just up to you if you'd really like that variance in your cube or not. I think running just the Looter is great, since it's such a bomb in the cube by itself. Delver can at least be played in any sorcery/instant heavy deck.
We are cubing this weekend & then next weekend is GP Montreal so I plan to get some more cube time in there as well. My plan (which is almost ready to go for this weekend) is to rework the Cube to be 360 using what I have learned on these forums and other credible sites over the past few months - along with my own decisions - and make its power level as high as possible.
Then, after this weekend I plan to add about 25 cards, mostly ones on my cut list now and try the Cube at 375 for next time. After that I plan to play around with it, 5 cards in, 5 cards out, etc until I have found my personal sweet spot. I want to have the Cube large enough to promote different archetypes and play styles without diluting it's power.
Sorry to break it to you, but at 360 cards supporting archetypes just isn't really possible with Pauper (or at least is very limited), especially while trying to maintain a power level among cards like Capsize, Sprout Swarm, HtT, and things like that. At 450 it's much easier, just granted you'll have a much, much larger draft and fitting in those niche cards that are both limited playable AND great in an archetype environment.
I know Runner on these boards runs full fledged archetypes like Rebels in white, but nothing really too small like Dredge (which is much easier to support at 450.
Don't forget it allows you to get some card draw off of those early game creatures you'll be playing in more control oriented decks that WILL die to Midrange/Aggro decks. That block and extra leverage you get off those trades are well worth it.
Example; Doomed Traveler is one of the most perfect cards for a control deck, giving you two blockers on the 1st turn. Turn 2 you're blocking with it and you can easily block sac to either Perilous Research or Altar's Reap, next block the same. That's pretty much what I'm talking about and it happens much more often than you'd think with how midrangey a format Pauper cube is.
Hahaha my bad - I was agreeing with the fact you said it's a great card as long as it is filling it's niche - a fast aggressive deck with no real reliance on lands. The fact that it survives through most red burn and can trade with other 3/3's is huge on T3, especially if you're going 2nd.
And yes, I read it
Agreed.
Why even reply to Humphrey? Just feeding the trollpool.
Gasp, switching out Rebels you say???
I'm honestly thinking of getting rid of Silent Departure for Flicker. There is so much bounce in Blue for me already that is picked up much quicker, and usually at Instant speed. If you're building a tempo based deck, I pretty much never pick up Departure. Even people that play a more control oriented draft I usually never see run Departure.
Usually my Blue tempo shells end up being a mix of Man o War, Ninja of Deep Hours, Mist Raven, Curfew and Waterfront Bouncer - along with a whole other slew of support spells. Flicker in that kind of shell seems a lot more potent than Departure IMO, but that might just be my meta.
Edit; I'll also usually have a Capsize lockdown before I even have to worry about flashing back Departure.
Seconded. Don't forget Mnemic Wall either. It's a really solid shell, even without the Cyclops. It's pretty much the only reason why I keep Delver in nowadays.
It's definitely a good card, but I don't think good enough to really take anything out at the moment :/
More often than you think, or at least some iteration of it. It honestly comes down to having only 3-4 of the cards together at once, and let the synergies really go to work.
For example, one player in my draft was rocking Undertaker, Basking Rootwalla, and Disturbed Burial. Just those 3 cards alone you can get SO much leverage out of thanks to the Madness.
Another one of my buddies had Grisly Salvage paired with Werebear in a BUG deck, popping insane Flaskbacks like Moment's Peace or Think Twice really gave him a nice shell, and a 4/4.
But yeah, it's hard to really make out what the "ideal" deck would be at the moment, it needs a bit more testing on my end. For me though, it was really about the card synergy, but I see what you're saying about how you need the right card selection otherwise you might end up with a durdly deck - I definitely took that into account when making these choices. Two cards I REALLY wanted; Dregscape Zombie and Viscera Dragger honestly just couldn't make the cut since they really lacked in other archetypes (In this case, it would have been something like Black Aggro or Midrange) over something like Vampire Interloper. Thankfully so far though, the cards I added are pretty solid picks in other types of decks. The only ones that were kind of iffy were Putrid Imp, and Stinkweed Imp - but they haven't been BAD so far. Putrid is at least interesting in other decks as a T1 play, and Stinkweed is always a pseduo removal that can come back, so I'm not complaining.
Sorry about the rant too, I just thought I should try to explain my thought process on adding them in, but like I said so far they're often picked up pretty quick in drafts, especially if you can get 2-3 other core cards to help create that Dredgy, graveyard oriented deck.
Oh yeah sorry about that, here are the missing ones;
Golgari Brownscale
Putrid Imp
Stinkweed Imp
Grisly Salvage
Already in the cube that synergize really well are;
Basking Rootwalla
Undertaker
Sluiceway Scorpion
Tortured Existence
Exhume
Unearth
Gravedigger
Desecrator Hag
Disturbed Burial
Werebear
And basically anything with Flashback. So far it's been going really nicely and is a really strong archetype with the right draft.
That's actually a hard one. In my opinion, archetypes really aren't that viable at 360 cards (unless it's U/G Hexproof, courtesy of Al_Z_Heimer), but really shine around ~450 cards. At 360 for the most part I think people go for overall power level, having playable cards that could fit in almost any deck you could splash for. Once you branch out further though where there are less powerful cards, making sure they have great synergies to make drafts more interesting is the way I went and it's been great.
Regardless, I can only think of a few off of my head;
White Rebels (Thanks to Runner)
G/B Dredge (Testing this at 450, working fine)
RDW or Burn (Actually really strong in Pauper)
Black Aggro, at loss of life (Efficient with the right cards)
Green Stompy
Blue Tempo
U/R Combos
These were definitely some of the strongest in my group, otherwise everything would pretty much fold into something midrange-y. I don't know if I agree with having each color having the same creature count however. For me, that really removes some of the personality and identity of each color - for example, Green naturally should have more creatures. To each his own though!
Agreed. It's really just up to you if you'd really like that variance in your cube or not. I think running just the Looter is great, since it's such a bomb in the cube by itself. Delver can at least be played in any sorcery/instant heavy deck.
Sorry to break it to you, but at 360 cards supporting archetypes just isn't really possible with Pauper (or at least is very limited), especially while trying to maintain a power level among cards like Capsize, Sprout Swarm, HtT, and things like that. At 450 it's much easier, just granted you'll have a much, much larger draft and fitting in those niche cards that are both limited playable AND great in an archetype environment.
I know Runner on these boards runs full fledged archetypes like Rebels in white, but nothing really too small like Dredge (which is much easier to support at 450.