Why are people so hyped up about Audacious Thief? Stealer of Secrets was never anything more than Borderline, and while this doesn't have to connect, it's still a 2/2 for 3 in a world full of efficient removal at 1 and 2 CMC. The only straight up Staples I see are Cloudkin Seer and Silverback Shaman, and maybe Winged Words. I wanna low-key try Boneclad Necromancer though, since a floor case of 5/5 worth of stats spread across two bodies isn't that bad, and it can disrupt Flashback cards and incidental graveyard synergies in my cube.
I don't understand the point of reaching consensus. If you want to min max everything and play the same few dozen cards as everyone else, why not play constructed?
I get the feeling that none of you guys actually like Pauper, you just can't afford a Vintage cube and don't like looking at proxies. If you want to max out on power just go all the way, why stick with commons?
Even if you don't want to minmax reaching a consensus is pretty useful, as if you're beginning you can either build a maximum power cube by knowing what are the essentials, or build a depowered cube with crap cards by cutting bombs right away. You also get to know what cards are actually useful and which ones look good in paper but have poor execution, because a curated limited environment is important for cube now matter which 360 you run (you don't want to have a full powered black section but everything else with mediocre power level for example).
About the second part, I'm not sure if you're trolling or actually serious. I have a Vintage cube with proxies for the most expensive cards (that actually look good, and can pass as the real thing as long as they're sleeved, so looks are a non-issue) and it's a completely different beast from Pauper, both from gameplay perspective and the actual power of the cards. By that logic, why play a tier 1 deck in any format, because if you wanted power you would go play Shops in Vintage, right?
So with Aria of Flame I take it that Thing in the Ice isn't needed anymore? Sideboard slots are limited, and I never liked the nonbo with Empty the Warrens anyways. Here's the list I'll probably be running in GP Barcelona:
Currently running just a single Fiery Islet, as the lifeloss vs the option of just adding colorless mana with Shivan Reef has mattered more than the card draw in my testing, but I kinda want you guys to convince me on running two.
FoF has been stellar over Pieces of the Puzzle and Aria of Flame is insane, specially in the face of graveyard hate. I usually swap both PiF, one Grapeshot and whatever other thing depending on the matchup for the three of them plus one Empty the Warrens and laugh at their dead cards. At that point the only thing I have to worry about (besides removal on a mana bear) is Damping Sphere / Rule of Law, which I can bounce at their EOT before going off. I would like to try 2-of Flusterstorm in the side though, and I feel pretty naked without any Ravenous Trap / Leyline of the Void in this Hogaak meta, although you can always try and outrace it.
Another question, how are you guys handling the UW Control matchup? It went from a walk in the park to an absolute nightmare thanks to Teferi, Time Raveler blocking your Gifts / FoF for value at their EoT plan, makes your bounce spells sorcery speed, and doesn't let you respond to removal on a bear when casting rituals, which has mattered a lot more times than you can imagine in my testing. Narset, Parter of Veils also invalidates half the deck while searching for answers and sideboard cards, there's no playing around Dovin's Veto on a Gifts / PiF and they have it open as soon as turn two, and they can even tap out to deploy a turn 3 walker while holding up Force of Negation for Gifts / PiF, which is usually game over. Maybe we should just run 1-2 Force of Negation ourselves in place of some Remand? I'm just kinda waiting to see how the deck evolves in the following weeks, since Aria of Flame has a ton of potential to be even a mainboard card.
Also, what are your White, Red and Black 2s, White Red and Blue 3s and Black 4s picks for the most powerful drops? The staples are pretty much clear both in the Evaluate Everything and by experience, but after that the cubeables are another world entirely with almost everyone running different things, so I was wondering if we could reach a consensus of which of those are the most powerful among the bunch (something like below staple but above cubeable).
After drafting a few times with the two package deal cards I created (one gives you the 6 artifact lands, another gives you Fountain of Youth, Ornithopter, Shield Sphere, Bone Saw, Phyrexian Walker, and Tormod's Crypt), I've decided to add 6Post as a package deal card too. Three copies of both Glimmer and Cloudpost.
The cube subreddit told me it was a bad idea, therefore it's a good idea that's worth trying out. Everyone on reddit is an anodyne sophist, so reddit can be used as an inverse springboard for ideas. The artifact land and junk artifact packages worked reasonably well, and getting 6Post seems like an exciting inclusion.
Other ideas for package deal cards: The kobolds, 3 copies of each Tron land, Squadron Hawk cards, S.N.O.T.
While I despise reddit and it's posting format, this time they're right though. Getting both 6 Locus lands and the Tron package with just two picks (or even one of the packages on a single pick) leads to all kinds of degenerate things at basically no opportunity cost, since in a regular Draft environment you'd have to "waste" several picks getting as many of those and you can, whereas in your proposed idea you would just pick one of them and not give them a second thought for the rest of the draft, leaving you to just focus on bomby, expensive spells. Squadron Hawk is fine though, I've considered it many times along with other "copies matter" cards for each color, but ultimately decided against it.
The 2/1 flier is an absolute bomb and a pretty easy staple, don't know why the sudden doubts about it. I mean, what's better than it? Calcite Snapper? Man-o'-War?
seems good enough for us as well. adds something to the spells matters
Yeah I also played the Drake but is it really that good? It's baseline is pretty low, dies to any 3 dmg burn and only gets one counter per turn and for the second spell each turn (creature or otherwise) so not really a spells matter card.
- Dead Weight > Defile: Easy swap.
- Justiciar's Portal > Ephemerate: Was between either Portal or Acrobatic Maneuver. Decided to keep the latter because even though it's one more mana, if you use it to save a creature without an ETB from removal it's a 2 for 1.
- Rotfeaster Maggot > First-Sphere Gargantua: Maggot was just a high curve filler with some lifegain, so this was an easy swap. Gargantua's baseline looks pretty good already, but I also have graveyard shenanigans and blink going around.
- Welkin Tern > Ninja of the Deep Hours: Had this in mind for a while and Ninjas made me reconsider it.
- Glint-Sleeve Artisan > Martyr's Soul: Either a vanilla 3/3 or a 2/2 with a 1/1 was nothing to write home about, even with swarm and blink support.
- Dead Reveler > Gluttonous Slug: While a 3/4 for 3 is beefy, the fact that it can't block makes it a lot worse. Slug has evasion and is extremely easy to get to at least 2/5 while curving out, so by turn 4 it has probably already done the same 3 damage than the Reveler, but easier thanks to Menace and it can also block.
- Ashmouth Hound > Orcish Hellraiser: This and the functional Goblin are my weakest 2 to cut without harming archetype support, and it's not like they're staples either.
- Ornery Goblin > Goblin Champion: See above.
- Fervent Cathar > Bogardan Dragonheart: RB Sacrifice archetype support. Sure it can result in a 2 for 1, but is there any sac outlet that doesn't? Cathar was the cleanest cut as I'm not downgrading the power of the cube for archetype support too much by cutting a staple or anything, and Dragonheart isn't bad on its own.
- Terrain Elemental > Treetop Ambusher: As it has already been said, Ambusher is a more flexible Elemental with Dash.
- Keldon Overseer > Spellgorger Weird: A cut that I have been mulling about since WAR. Gorger is good on it's own and Overseer isn't a staple or high pick, so again the cube doesn't lose much power because of this.
- Soltari Visionary > Rhox Veteran: My 3s are super packed in white, and Veteran is good on it's own and also supports Swarm. Not sure about Visionary being the correct cut for it though, maybe I should look at something else.
- Predatory Nightstalker > Silumgar Scavenger: Nightstalker looks good on paper, but it usually just ate a 1/1 token, a Pacified creature or a random bear. Scavenger is pretty neat on it's own upgrading a creature into a 3/4 haste flying that can grow from there, and is both a sac enabler and sac payoff.
- Rampaging Rendhorn > Excavating Anurid: Cantripping 4/4 > Hasty 4/4. It will probably have Threshold active the next turn, so it's 5/5 case is also better than Rendhorn's
- Wrecking Beast > Trumpeting Herd: Beast was just a GR ramp experiment that got removed without impact one too many times. Herd seems pretty powerful, on the upper echelons of Green cards even, so it was an easy swap.
- Pegasus Courser > Knight of Cliffhaven: As I said I have a glut of things on White's 3, so Courser gets replaced by an okay 2 drop that helps enable War Falcon.
I'll also add Pondering Mage once I figure out what to cut as Blue is pretty stacked overall. I'm also looking for ways to include bread and butter things like Kitesail Corsair, Welkin Tern and Waterknot but that's probably for the This or That thread. Is there any obvious inclusions I might have missed?
Also what are our thoughts on Moonblade Shinobi and Magmatic Sinkhole? They've performed pretty good for me in MH drafts, and a Shinobi connecting on T3 snowballs real quick if you can keep up the tempo by removing blockers. Mother Bear also looks like it has a nice baseline and plays well with the graveyard.
Overall, these last two sets have been great for RB sac, as the only weak archetype cards I'm running are Bogardan Dragonheart and Hissing Iguanar, the rest are powerful cards that could be run on their own. Here's hoping Simic and Orzhov get the same love in coming sets.
And I will never forget K0no, for defending Eldrazi winter a month into it being ~50% of the meta, saying people just had to adapt
A broken clock is right twice a day. The fact that you just had to resort to hyperbole from a period that happened three years ago (because I'm not even sure he defended it) and had no other examples to show off really drives your point home.
Well I hope there are more with Ninjutsu, at least in black since the Shinobi is the only one I like. The Black vanilla one is just super dumb, the lifelinker and phantom warrior are eh, but not having ninjutsu just feels super bad, like they could've been just some random rogues, they don't feel ninja at all.
Wow this is nuts in Affinity, early game it basically doubles your board presence and CMC 3 means it will hit the table more often than not on second turn. Stacks in multiples and if you happen to draw one lategame it lets you go all in Ravager and win one way or the other.
C'mon, just give me a few more solid ninjas on the line of Ninja of the Deep Hours so I can build Ninja Tribal. Ingenious Infiltrator was a beast, but probably too strong at 3 toughness and making the effect stackable. Apparently they're a thing in this set's limited and they're still on 2 colors, so I expect a few black and blue ones at common.
Forum could use the Pauper EDH section too instead of lumping it with "Other Formats" in the EDH subforum. Also Paper is all but extinct since this past year there have been numerous GP side events and even a Qualifier and all used MODO legalities, as do other big tournaments like Rags to Riches I think. We should stop differentiating between both.
Endling is super good, although I'm not sure if it's priced to move. If it was 3 CMC like Brightling, GBx decks would have one hell of a tool. Also a bit annoyed that its "indestructibility" effect only works one time and can be blanked by Path.
So Ninja's are probably the UB archetype, and Slivers are RW? This one's cool, hope the rest aren't horribly overcosted like 80% of the ninjas in the current card pool.
Even if you don't want to minmax reaching a consensus is pretty useful, as if you're beginning you can either build a maximum power cube by knowing what are the essentials, or build a depowered cube with crap cards by cutting bombs right away. You also get to know what cards are actually useful and which ones look good in paper but have poor execution, because a curated limited environment is important for cube now matter which 360 you run (you don't want to have a full powered black section but everything else with mediocre power level for example).
About the second part, I'm not sure if you're trolling or actually serious. I have a Vintage cube with proxies for the most expensive cards (that actually look good, and can pass as the real thing as long as they're sleeved, so looks are a non-issue) and it's a completely different beast from Pauper, both from gameplay perspective and the actual power of the cards. By that logic, why play a tier 1 deck in any format, because if you wanted power you would go play Shops in Vintage, right?
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
3 Goblin Electromancer
Instant (23)
1 Unsubstantiate
3 Opt
3 Remand
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Gifts Ungiven
Sorcery (13)
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Grapeshot
2 Past in Flames
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
1 Fiery Islet
1 Mountain
3 Shivan Reef
4 Island
4 Steam Vents
4 Spirebluff Canal
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Abrade
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Aria of Flame
4 Fact or Fiction
Currently running just a single Fiery Islet, as the lifeloss vs the option of just adding colorless mana with Shivan Reef has mattered more than the card draw in my testing, but I kinda want you guys to convince me on running two.
FoF has been stellar over Pieces of the Puzzle and Aria of Flame is insane, specially in the face of graveyard hate. I usually swap both PiF, one Grapeshot and whatever other thing depending on the matchup for the three of them plus one Empty the Warrens and laugh at their dead cards. At that point the only thing I have to worry about (besides removal on a mana bear) is Damping Sphere / Rule of Law, which I can bounce at their EOT before going off. I would like to try 2-of Flusterstorm in the side though, and I feel pretty naked without any Ravenous Trap / Leyline of the Void in this Hogaak meta, although you can always try and outrace it.
Another question, how are you guys handling the UW Control matchup? It went from a walk in the park to an absolute nightmare thanks to Teferi, Time Raveler blocking your Gifts / FoF for value at their EoT plan, makes your bounce spells sorcery speed, and doesn't let you respond to removal on a bear when casting rituals, which has mattered a lot more times than you can imagine in my testing. Narset, Parter of Veils also invalidates half the deck while searching for answers and sideboard cards, there's no playing around Dovin's Veto on a Gifts / PiF and they have it open as soon as turn two, and they can even tap out to deploy a turn 3 walker while holding up Force of Negation for Gifts / PiF, which is usually game over. Maybe we should just run 1-2 Force of Negation ourselves in place of some Remand? I'm just kinda waiting to see how the deck evolves in the following weeks, since Aria of Flame has a ton of potential to be even a mainboard card.
- Stitched Drake vs Wormfang Drake (if any)
- Goblin Champion vs Grim Initiate
- Stitched Mangler vs Frost Lynx vs Watertrap Weaver (pick two)
- Shambling Shell vs Grisly Salvage
- Kingpin's Pet vs Pillory of the Sleepless vs Tithe Drinker (pick two)
- Lava Dart vs Forked Bolt (or any other card you think is a better cut than Forked Bolt)
- Undying Evil vs Supernatural Stamina (same as above).
Also, what are your White, Red and Black 2s, White Red and Blue 3s and Black 4s picks for the most powerful drops? The staples are pretty much clear both in the Evaluate Everything and by experience, but after that the cubeables are another world entirely with almost everyone running different things, so I was wondering if we could reach a consensus of which of those are the most powerful among the bunch (something like below staple but above cubeable).
While I despise reddit and it's posting format, this time they're right though. Getting both 6 Locus lands and the Tron package with just two picks (or even one of the packages on a single pick) leads to all kinds of degenerate things at basically no opportunity cost, since in a regular Draft environment you'd have to "waste" several picks getting as many of those and you can, whereas in your proposed idea you would just pick one of them and not give them a second thought for the rest of the draft, leaving you to just focus on bomby, expensive spells. Squadron Hawk is fine though, I've considered it many times along with other "copies matter" cards for each color, but ultimately decided against it.
- Welkin Tern vs Omenspeaker
- Hypothesizzle vs Razorfin Hunter
- Goblin War Party vs Ill-Tempered Cyclops (both roleplayers for Swarm/Sacrifice and Ramp, respectively)
Also, what are your thoughts on Observant Alseid, Moonblade Shinobi, Wight of Precinct Six, Magmatic Sinkhole, Leafcrown Dryad, Yavimaya Enchantress and Winding Way as individual cards, archetypes not withstanding?
Yeah I also played the Drake but is it really that good? It's baseline is pretty low, dies to any 3 dmg burn and only gets one counter per turn and for the second spell each turn (creature or otherwise) so not really a spells matter card.
- Dead Weight > Defile: Easy swap.
- Justiciar's Portal > Ephemerate: Was between either Portal or Acrobatic Maneuver. Decided to keep the latter because even though it's one more mana, if you use it to save a creature without an ETB from removal it's a 2 for 1.
- Rotfeaster Maggot > First-Sphere Gargantua: Maggot was just a high curve filler with some lifegain, so this was an easy swap. Gargantua's baseline looks pretty good already, but I also have graveyard shenanigans and blink going around.
- Welkin Tern > Ninja of the Deep Hours: Had this in mind for a while and Ninjas made me reconsider it.
- Glint-Sleeve Artisan > Martyr's Soul: Either a vanilla 3/3 or a 2/2 with a 1/1 was nothing to write home about, even with swarm and blink support.
- Dead Reveler > Gluttonous Slug: While a 3/4 for 3 is beefy, the fact that it can't block makes it a lot worse. Slug has evasion and is extremely easy to get to at least 2/5 while curving out, so by turn 4 it has probably already done the same 3 damage than the Reveler, but easier thanks to Menace and it can also block.
- Ashmouth Hound > Orcish Hellraiser: This and the functional Goblin are my weakest 2 to cut without harming archetype support, and it's not like they're staples either.
- Ornery Goblin > Goblin Champion: See above.
- Fervent Cathar > Bogardan Dragonheart: RB Sacrifice archetype support. Sure it can result in a 2 for 1, but is there any sac outlet that doesn't? Cathar was the cleanest cut as I'm not downgrading the power of the cube for archetype support too much by cutting a staple or anything, and Dragonheart isn't bad on its own.
- Terrain Elemental > Treetop Ambusher: As it has already been said, Ambusher is a more flexible Elemental with Dash.
- Keldon Overseer > Spellgorger Weird: A cut that I have been mulling about since WAR. Gorger is good on it's own and Overseer isn't a staple or high pick, so again the cube doesn't lose much power because of this.
- Soltari Visionary > Rhox Veteran: My 3s are super packed in white, and Veteran is good on it's own and also supports Swarm. Not sure about Visionary being the correct cut for it though, maybe I should look at something else.
- Predatory Nightstalker > Silumgar Scavenger: Nightstalker looks good on paper, but it usually just ate a 1/1 token, a Pacified creature or a random bear. Scavenger is pretty neat on it's own upgrading a creature into a 3/4 haste flying that can grow from there, and is both a sac enabler and sac payoff.
- Rampaging Rendhorn > Excavating Anurid: Cantripping 4/4 > Hasty 4/4. It will probably have Threshold active the next turn, so it's 5/5 case is also better than Rendhorn's
- Wrecking Beast > Trumpeting Herd: Beast was just a GR ramp experiment that got removed without impact one too many times. Herd seems pretty powerful, on the upper echelons of Green cards even, so it was an easy swap.
- Pegasus Courser > Knight of Cliffhaven: As I said I have a glut of things on White's 3, so Courser gets replaced by an okay 2 drop that helps enable War Falcon.
I'll also add Pondering Mage once I figure out what to cut as Blue is pretty stacked overall. I'm also looking for ways to include bread and butter things like Kitesail Corsair, Welkin Tern and Waterknot but that's probably for the This or That thread. Is there any obvious inclusions I might have missed?
Also what are our thoughts on Moonblade Shinobi and Magmatic Sinkhole? They've performed pretty good for me in MH drafts, and a Shinobi connecting on T3 snowballs real quick if you can keep up the tempo by removing blockers. Mother Bear also looks like it has a nice baseline and plays well with the graveyard.
Overall, these last two sets have been great for RB sac, as the only weak archetype cards I'm running are Bogardan Dragonheart and Hissing Iguanar, the rest are powerful cards that could be run on their own. Here's hoping Simic and Orzhov get the same love in coming sets.
A broken clock is right twice a day. The fact that you just had to resort to hyperbole from a period that happened three years ago (because I'm not even sure he defended it) and had no other examples to show off really drives your point home.