The difference between drawing an extra land and putting it on the bottom of the deck is pretty small in this deck, so the scry is almost as good as the cantrip. In this case, with our first strikers, the instant speed puts Titan's strength over the top.
Looks like the "neighs" have it. Interesting discussion, though. If we open Medomenai, we'll feel pretty smart.
Still, I feel like we're veering away from a viable deck with picks like the horse. We should keep our eyes on the prize. While we are two or three playables away from where we would like to be in this draft, the kind of playables we're missing aren't hard to find. Traveling philosopher is an all-star here, for instance.
Overall, I'm still pretty optimistic we can get the four sets of butts and pants we need to nail the A&C/pegasodes archetype. And if when we get them, we'll be out a second disenchant in the board.
First of all, I love these suggestions and all the feedback from you guys. I'm definitely going to try bringing out some of the cheap removal (as well as tortured existence) and sub in two or three cheap bodies. Blind Creeper and the raiders looks especially awesome! Thanks for the info!
As far as why discard is good in aggro, it's just a hunch I have based on what I know about magic theory. The idea of aggro is that your cards are worse than the midrange or control player, but you kill them before the other, more powerful deck can play its hand. Killing someone on turn 4, when they have six or seven cards in hand, takes away the opponents main advantage over the aggro player: the higher card quality. Discard does the same thing, but by directly attacking the hand.
Another way to look at it: Card draw is better in control, where the overall quality of cards is high enough to justify spending time and mana to get more in your hand. Flipping that onto its head, we could say that discard is better when your opponent has better cards than you do, i.e. my aggro vs your midrange/control.
And it bears out in my experience too: I love Ub tempo, and I love hands that let me put four cheap threats on the board and then, with my last card, strip the opponent's hand.
The buybacking envincar thingy is pestilence #2. Good point on including the creatures.
I hear you on how recursion is like draw+ in the long game. But I don't think black control has a problem. It's aggro I'm concerned about. And for the same reasons draw seems to be best in control decks, I reason that discard is good in aggro. Am I mistaken on that point?
Al, I'm not sure I agree with the philosophy of just adding the best cards as they come along. If that was the case, red would be nearly all burn. Keeping the viability of as many archetypes as possible is my philosophy in a nutshell.
I have always been looking for an affordable way to play MtG. After finding out about cubing and doing some research (mostly in this forum), I went and ordered Lanxal's cube. To cut $30 off the top of the purchase, I swapped out sinkhole for wrench mind from the start. I've been very happy with the cube overall.
Now, Lanxal is cutting sinkhole for read the bones. I approve, but I hesitate to cut wrench mind for read the bones. The whole thing got me thinking about whether draw or discard improves black's prospects in the cube overall.
Basically, the problem is this: black aggro already seems like a weak archetype in the cube. In my group's experience, it consistently loses to the aggro matchups and some control matchups. Are my drafters just doing it wrong, or do other people have this problem as well? And if the problem is with the cube itself, shouldn't I want to play more cheap discard to help support the archetype?
The key seems to lie in the balance of the black spells between removal, draw, discard and recursion. Right now, Lanxal has:
13 removal spells
2 discard spells (I have 3, adding wrench mind)
2 draw spells (I have just one, without read the bones)
5 recursion spells
4 misc (2 pestilence effects, 1 ramp, 1 aura)
Is this right? My gut is telling me to cut recursion and add either discard or draw. Thoughts?
Still, I feel like we're veering away from a viable deck with picks like the horse. We should keep our eyes on the prize. While we are two or three playables away from where we would like to be in this draft, the kind of playables we're missing aren't hard to find. Traveling philosopher is an all-star here, for instance.
Overall, I'm still pretty optimistic we can get the four sets of butts and pants we need to nail the A&C/pegasodes archetype. And
ifwhen we get them, we'll be out a second disenchant in the board.This is not a unicorn deck at all.
First of all, I love these suggestions and all the feedback from you guys. I'm definitely going to try bringing out some of the cheap removal (as well as tortured existence) and sub in two or three cheap bodies. Blind Creeper and the raiders looks especially awesome! Thanks for the info!
As far as why discard is good in aggro, it's just a hunch I have based on what I know about magic theory. The idea of aggro is that your cards are worse than the midrange or control player, but you kill them before the other, more powerful deck can play its hand. Killing someone on turn 4, when they have six or seven cards in hand, takes away the opponents main advantage over the aggro player: the higher card quality. Discard does the same thing, but by directly attacking the hand.
Another way to look at it: Card draw is better in control, where the overall quality of cards is high enough to justify spending time and mana to get more in your hand. Flipping that onto its head, we could say that discard is better when your opponent has better cards than you do, i.e. my aggro vs your midrange/control.
And it bears out in my experience too: I love Ub tempo, and I love hands that let me put four cheap threats on the board and then, with my last card, strip the opponent's hand.
Al, what cuts did you make to add creatures?
I hear you on how recursion is like draw+ in the long game. But I don't think black control has a problem. It's aggro I'm concerned about. And for the same reasons draw seems to be best in control decks, I reason that discard is good in aggro. Am I mistaken on that point?
Al, I'm not sure I agree with the philosophy of just adding the best cards as they come along. If that was the case, red would be nearly all burn. Keeping the viability of as many archetypes as possible is my philosophy in a nutshell.
I have always been looking for an affordable way to play MtG. After finding out about cubing and doing some research (mostly in this forum), I went and ordered Lanxal's cube. To cut $30 off the top of the purchase, I swapped out sinkhole for wrench mind from the start. I've been very happy with the cube overall.
Now, Lanxal is cutting sinkhole for read the bones. I approve, but I hesitate to cut wrench mind for read the bones. The whole thing got me thinking about whether draw or discard improves black's prospects in the cube overall.
Basically, the problem is this: black aggro already seems like a weak archetype in the cube. In my group's experience, it consistently loses to the aggro matchups and some control matchups. Are my drafters just doing it wrong, or do other people have this problem as well? And if the problem is with the cube itself, shouldn't I want to play more cheap discard to help support the archetype?
The key seems to lie in the balance of the black spells between removal, draw, discard and recursion. Right now, Lanxal has:
13 removal spells
2 discard spells (I have 3, adding wrench mind)
2 draw spells (I have just one, without read the bones)
5 recursion spells
4 misc (2 pestilence effects, 1 ramp, 1 aura)
Is this right? My gut is telling me to cut recursion and add either discard or draw. Thoughts?