Going over some of the winning decks first:
- This deck featured Lively Dirge / Vaultborn Tyrant in the main deck and [Harvester of Misery] in the sideboard. This was my deck I played last night, and it's quite possibly the most heavily concentrated reaniamtor deck I've ever built because I had such an open draft lane.
- The extreme nature of this deck was a good example showing that Lively Dirge can be main decked in such a highly concentrated Reanimator deck that also had Entomb / Unmarked Grave / literally every other UB tutor not named Demonic tutor.
- Likewise for Vaultborn Tyrant, since I pretty much had every premium Flash hit sans Atraxa / Woodfall Primus. Vaultborn Tyrant is definitely one of the lesser Flash hits in comparison, but is also one of the more hard castable ones (just not in this deck, lol).
- Harvester of Misery was a key sideboard card, taking out problematic creatures like Dauthi Voidwalker / Scavenging Ooze in match deciding games. Granted, that could've bee any black removal spell, but the hard cast mode would've been extremely relevant in those match ups also, I just never had the chance to hard cast / recur / flash it.
- This was a very crime heavy deck for Duelist of the Mind, which really helped dig for and fuel Uro / From the Catacombs. This was a good example of Duelist doing a lot of work in a deck that lacked draw 7s. The only other ways I had to draw cards were off Uro / Occult Epiphany.
- Duelist was also very key in contesting monarch / initiative, especially since this deck had 2 initiative enablers. Not only that, but Duelist having flying and vigilance is a prime target for the two +1/+1 counters from the Forge room.
- I didn't notice it at the time, but this deck had a lot of token generators for Sandstorm Salvager with Occult Epiphany / Bitterblossom / Grist / Oko / Caldaia Guardian / Esika's Chariot / Sandstorm Salvager itself. I only saw it in play once in this particular deck where it pumped its own golem token + two tokens from Caldaia Guardian, but it was ultimately stalling for time as I waited for my opponent to over extend into my Damnation. I have seen Sandstorm Salvager a lot in other decks though where it's been doing A LOT of work pumping other tokens.
- This deck featured Dust Animus, but I was told it either came in scenarios where the game was already won / lost. Was at least good enough to make the main deck at least.
- Another deck where Duelist of the Mind shined. This was also a pretty heavy crime deck, but also had more card draw (especially repeatable things like Library of Alexandria / Kaito Shizuki).
- This was a good shell for Goldvein Hydra since it had a lot of ramp and ways to give it more counters with Court of Garenbrig + Minsc & Boo. It was also good at softening up the opponent and having the death trigger set up Craterhoof Behemoth for lethal.
Some other notes from cards I've seen outside of 3-0 decks.
- I saw Slickshot Show-Off in one deck. I never saw it go crazy, but the games that I saw showcased how flying + haste can provide a lot of inevitability to closing out games.
- I saw Smirking Spelljacker once when I was playing an Oath deck. I was in a scenario where I could either cast Oko or hard cast Trumpeting Carnosaur. I decided to bait with Oko first and was met with Smirking Spelljacker. Luckily I was able to kill it with Trumpeting Carnosaur's "channel" ability. This could've been a really bad scenario if I didn't correctly bait out my opponent.
- Legion Extuder has been doing a lot of work in artifact heavy shells. It can be really annoying to just keep on recycling your 3/3 in response to removal or after a chump block. And just having more critical mass for Tolarian Academy is really nice.
- I've seen Aven Interrupter a few times, and I think it always died the next turn so they were able to cast their spell for free.
There were two other drafts with OTJ, but two of the 3-0s didn't contain any OTJ cards (tends to happen in a lot of cheaty face decks).
Self fulfilling prophecy right here. True story, the first OTJ draft I won with Oath of Druids + zero OTJ cards, lol.
Overall thoughts
- Duelist of the Mind has been the most impressive out of the gate. I feel like a lot of people were underestimating it, but I'm extremely confident that I was correct in putting it as a top 2 card from this set alongside Slickshot Show-Off.
- I'm pretty confident in my theory of Lively Dirge being able to make the main deck of any reanimator shell. Not just from the decks I've already seen it in, but also going back through my 3-0 archive and seeing how it could've been slotted in to any of those reanimator decks over other cards.
- I'm feeling less good about Phantom Interference / Three Steps Ahead. Phantom Interference is fine, but it's definitely currently at the bottom of my counterspell totem pole. I'd imagine Three Steps Ahead would be even lower than that.
Mana Support?: No
Mana Support?: No
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To answer the question, yes, I think a 465 cube can support 4 per guild at this point without sacrificing power level or having gold cards go last pick. There's some powerful stuff available in most guilds these days, some even first pickable.
At 540 here are my Dimir and Selesnya sections:
Voice of Resurgence (probably going to try Torsten in the slot)
Kitchen Finks (more of a pet card these days, but I support persist combo, so it plays there)
Knight of Autumn (staple)
Knight of the Reliquary (a favorite among my group)
Mirari's Wake (a favorite among my group)
Baleful Strix (staple)
Rona, Herald of Invasion (solid looter, powerful flip side)
Sauron's Ransom (new addition)
Ertai Resurrected (solid role player)
Fallen Shinobi (a favorite among my group)
I'd also agree that cube threads feel like a thing of the past with utilities like CubeCobra around. We're no longer limited to posting our updates only on our cube threads or having cube pics here. I am nostalgic for those forum days, but I accept reality. You'll get more conversation in single card discussion or This or That threads.
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This is exactly what I want to do in cube, though.
Monarch and Initiative seem to be a point where the cube community, in general, is split. I'm not interested in running a card in my powered cube just because it provides Initiative/Monarch. If the two halves together equal out to be a card that I think makes the cut, then it makes the cut. I'm not interested in Passageway Seer, for example, because I don't think a slowly growing four mana 2/2 lifelinker is worth it - regardless of how powerful goining through The Undercity can be.
I'm much more interested in an enabler like Court of Locthwain (and Court of Garenbrig), because even if you lose Monarch, the cards themselves are still doing pretty powerful things - even by Vintage cube standards.
My group has also been very happy with Monarch/Initiative enablers in our environment(s), so it's probably just a matter of taste. If turn two Tinker into Blightsteel is fine, then these Monarch Courts are probably fine as well. Perhaps even more so as it pertains to how "fair" they are.
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This sounds like a very specific synergy that wouldn't come up very often. Not to mention that Wishclaw, in general, is a fringe card itself. If you look at Agent in the grand scheme of cube and the commonly ran library searchers, you're looking more at fetch lands, green ramp spells, and tutors. Stealing that search with Agent can certainly be a powerful disruptive play, but it being three mana was a huge negative. Flash creatures shouldn't be underrated, but I'm not running Hired Blade just because it can be flashed in at EOT, which is what Agent ended up being more often than not.
While I do agree with this to some extent, you have to evaluate creatures on more than just stats alone. Even if you compare the two based solely on their stats, you're comparing a 3/3 to a 3/2, which has the Trespasser coming out on top. In addition Trespasser is harder to deal with due to the ward and flips into a 4/4. I also think Trespasser has a much more consistent disruptive ability with the graveyard hate getting increasingly more relevant in today's cube environments and the life gain is nothing to sneeze at.
The only bad thing the Trespasser has going for it is the god-awful Day/Night mechanic. Full disclosure, I'm not running Trespasser and this is the only reason why. Keeping track of Day/Night in paper is such a distracting pain in the neck and it's so easy to forget.
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First, the links:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aGNGVQPoxwybJxJRrLjpzXQsQwgYbatSw-JxPvi-tRY/edit?usp=sharing
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/mtgs2023
The rules I used for inclusion:
Must be updated through LCI (with a full update - one Geological Appraiser didn't count)
Must be regularly updated (if not with each set release, at least a few times a year to bring the cube up to speed)
I know this is technically a CubeCobra average peasant list, but a large chunk of those lists are from regular MTGS users. Since the project stems from this forum, I think MTGS Average still makes sense.
One thing to note is that because CubeCobra only offers a specific number of color coding options for tags, I had to tag by tens instead of the normal fives. This doesn't really change much until you get to the more fringe choices in larger cubes, but I thought it worth mentioning. If your choice is close, you can always get the exact numbers from the Google doc.
The first thing that stood out to me this year is that Shock Lands made their way into the average list. I guess more and more people are updating their mana bases to include rare lands. Last year I think there were a couple random rare duals that made it in, but I cut them from the list before uploading since it was weird to have just one or two. All ten shocks were there this year, so they're also in the list.
While browsing the finished list, the next thing I noticed is just how good Lord of the Rings was to cubes of all shapes and sizes. What a great cube set.
The last thing that popped out at me is how people are leaning into archetype support rather than just good commons and uncommons. I see lots of support for self-mill and graveyard strategies, persist combo, and some others. Very cool to see.
I'm sure there's a ton of data comparison between last year's list and this year's, but I'm spent so I'll let others do that if they're so inclined.
Anyway, happy holidays, friends, and I hope this list is useful for you. May 2024 give you all many chances to cube!
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Speaking from a bit of experience with this exact thing, this is completely true. We have an add-on that includes Storm, Combo, Un cards, Conspiracies, etc that we sometimes add and brings the cube up to 720 or so. Saheeli Combo is in that mix and it's literally never come together. It's on the docket to be cut in an upcoming update.
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For example, here is the 2022 list filtered down to as close to 360 as you can get without going over.
NOTE: Copy/Paste this. Clicking it won't work.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/mtgs2022?f=tag:"40-44 Lists" or tag:"45-50 Lists" or tag:"35-39 Lists" or tag:"30-34 Lists" or tag:"25-29 Lists" or tag:"20-24 Lists"
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