Yah that makes sense. I just hate to see good archetypes go.
I've drafted your cube quite a bit + looked over your past drafts and I really like a lot of the archetypes/ decks. I was never able to draft a successful Tezzert/ Welder Deck/ Workshop. Do you have an example?
I'm a little bit disappointed you decided to cut your Polymorph + Dark Depths combo. Is there a reason to not let your cube grow by another 120-140 cards to allow the support of multiple archetypes?
I'm personally just reluctant to let some archetypes/ cards go.
Reveillark was my number one most disappointing cube card. I had it in my cube for years and it saw basically zero play. White decks in my cube tend to either be balls-to-the-wall aggro decks that don't want to durdle with Reveillark or hard control decks that don't have enough targets for it.
Gonna get flack for this one but Balance has been disappointing for me. Yes, when Balance is good its REALLY good but it suffers from a similar problem to Reveillark in that it fits in a narrow range of decks and situations. Aggro decks don't want to wipe their board and control decks don't want to discard their hand. And in an unpowered cube its too hard to turbo out ways to break the symmetry. I assume its much better in powered cubes; I'm probably going to cut it from my unpowered cube soon.
For this reason, I don;t like the idea of keeping cubes small - the decks are too streamlined. I don't like cutting so many unique cards because they aren't hyperstreamed to the color's identity. Reveillark does some really amazing things with the pod/ recurring deck .. but i could really see how its too slow in smaller cubes.
For Balance, I think you need to think of these 3 situations:
- Control decks, I was facing an aggressive/ramp deck and they opened on the play with a 1-2 creature, I would any day balance to trade 2 cards in hand + balance for their two creatures. I think its hyper important to have the option to do this. If I was a control deck, I be much more willing to keep a very slow hand that has balance in it. It makes your turn 3-4 planeswalkers absolutely devastating. Similarly, if I could "smallpox" away so much resource, the control player will generally win the late game.
- Reanimator Decks - I know reanimator doesn't like to go into white, but Balance is so perfect for that deck. You can board wipe (you likely don't have creatures) and its your discard outlet.
- Its a great setup in artifact decks. They go into 4 colors anyways (minus green)
- This is the most underappreciated mode of balance - Suppose you're facing against a non-blue opponent, you can mulligan down to 4-5 for Balance/ Subset of 2 cards and you're very likely to hit it based on the new mulligan rule. If you open with Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Channel, Mishra's Workshop, great - your deck is built around it and you're so far ahead. If you don't hit it, you can cast balance turn 2 to make the game more "balanced" by forcing your opponent to discard down to parity. (Its also very good at recovering from mulligans).
Thanks for your dedicated to the cube community. With so many sets/ new cards going around, I always wait for White Wolf's Verdict on cards before testing.
New untapped are always a welcome in my books. I love the pathway lands.
Three cards I will be watching very closely:
- Valki, God of Lies. TideHollow Sculler has been amazing because if its 2 power. I've found Mesmeric fiend to be underwhelming. Unfortunately, this creature doesn't have Sculler's ETB/ flicker shenanigans but it is mono-color + Valki seems like a nice card card to for black aggro, black-green recurring decks that need early drops + mana sinks.
- Battle Mammoth - This seems like a very well rounded creature, but I'm not sure if green midrange is really the way to go in vintage cube right now.
- Doomskar - I think the consensus is Wrath of God/ Day of Judgement are the better wrath. I'm not sure if Terminus, Doomskar or Shatter the Sky should be the 3rd wrath. I currently have give it to terminus because it can tuck rather than destroy them.
For me there are a few cube classics that just don't see much play in my list. At 360 where its hard to justify keeping cards that don't see play I consider that "low performance". even though these cards are powerful and do make big plays now and then it's getting harder to keep them in.
Rishadan Port isn't doing that great - I will agree with that. Its really not an exciting card these cards. The only thing going for this card is my aggro section is limited to only mono white (which is under drafted in my play group anyways). Rishadan port wheeling signals that white aggro is open.
I don't see what the problem with Armageddon, its insane in aggressive strategies. I've heard arguments that its not as good because of the artifact fast mana the opponent might play, but I personally an affinity for all these Reclamation Sage and I play almost all the possible variants in my cube. (not the red one because I have a lot of artifact hate already in that color). I value them very highly in any creature based deck - aggro or combo.
Its pretty much a 4 mana win the game in any aggressive deck.
Show and Tell is interesting - I do admit is the worst fatty cheat enabler. But what I do like right now is it could be played in Storm decks to power out Bolas Citidal, Thousand-Year Storm etc.
Sneak Attack is almost never going to come out of my cube. It is insane, goes infinite with Palinchron, insane with Eldrazi Titans. This is absolutely devastasting.
Reveillark is another very strong enabler in Recurring Nightmare, Pod decks. This is almost never coming out of my cube.
I've been thinking about Cabal Therapy for 3 reasons:
1. Reanimator Decks:
Outside of Faithless Looting/ Entomb, there are very few ways to get a fatty into to the bin turn 1. Cabal Therapy could be used to target the player themselves, then turn 2 Entomb. This feels like a pretty good play.
2. I've been toying with my spells matter section and I've been thinking about how Cabal Therapy might be pretty good with the discard outlets in blue/ Red such as Magmatic Channeler/ Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, especially if the deck already plays Gitaxian Probe + hand disruption and these decks play the two pyromancers + 4-5 Goblin Rabblemaster Variants.
3. Sacrifice Decks are doing fairly well. This seems like a pretty good enabler for those decks.
Its been a pretty long project. The majority of these cards have been exceptionally difficult to explain. I've revised a few of my explanations of some of the older cards to help explain their concepts/ use cases a bit better to newer players.
I'm currently looking over some of my previous explanations and trying to add more details/ sample game plays/ potentially deck lists. If there are cards that are unclear/ cards you feel are missing, please let me know.
Maybe I'm dumb, but I had to read this card several times to fully understand it. Some cards in this set are incredibly complicated... I would consider testing if the pump were not only for legendary creatures.
I feel you on this one.
Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion is a card btw - I always think any red 4-5 drops should be compared with him.
If it was changed from "Each Player" to "Target Player", would this be allowed?
Can Sickening Dreams hit Planeswalkers?
Suppose your opponent has a Planeswalker X. Do you decided where the redirection goes to?
1. Inverter Combo:
Inverter of Truth
Demonic Consultation
Tainted Pact
Thassa's Oracle
Nexus of Fate
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
All fine almost playables if evaluated outside their combo potential.
2. Gitrog/ Lands Combo:
The Gitrog Monster
Titania, Protector of Argoth
With:
Rain of Filth
Squandered Resources
For:
Field of the Dead - Requires snow as Snow-Covered Forest and Forest are different lands.
Dark Depths / Thespian Stage
Felidar Retreat
Valakut Exploration
Play extra lands:
FastBond
Exploration
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
Knight of the Reliquary
Elvish Reclaimer
Oracle of Mul Daya
Mina and Denn, Wildborn
Play from top of library:
Oracle of Mul Daya
Courser of Kruphix
Radha, Heart of Keld
Play from Graveyard:
Crucible of Worlds
Life from the Loam
Wreen and Six
All in lands combo - With the traditional lands combo cards of Crucible of Words, Life from the Loam and Ramnap Execuator
Anyone got any fun ideas?
I've drafted your cube quite a bit + looked over your past drafts and I really like a lot of the archetypes/ decks. I was never able to draft a successful Tezzert/ Welder Deck/ Workshop. Do you have an example?
I'm personally just reluctant to let some archetypes/ cards go.
For this reason, I don;t like the idea of keeping cubes small - the decks are too streamlined. I don't like cutting so many unique cards because they aren't hyperstreamed to the color's identity. Reveillark does some really amazing things with the pod/ recurring deck .. but i could really see how its too slow in smaller cubes.
For Balance, I think you need to think of these 3 situations:
- Control decks, I was facing an aggressive/ramp deck and they opened on the play with a 1-2 creature, I would any day balance to trade 2 cards in hand + balance for their two creatures. I think its hyper important to have the option to do this. If I was a control deck, I be much more willing to keep a very slow hand that has balance in it. It makes your turn 3-4 planeswalkers absolutely devastating. Similarly, if I could "smallpox" away so much resource, the control player will generally win the late game.
- Reanimator Decks - I know reanimator doesn't like to go into white, but Balance is so perfect for that deck. You can board wipe (you likely don't have creatures) and its your discard outlet.
- Its a great setup in artifact decks. They go into 4 colors anyways (minus green)
- This is the most underappreciated mode of balance - Suppose you're facing against a non-blue opponent, you can mulligan down to 4-5 for Balance/ Subset of 2 cards and you're very likely to hit it based on the new mulligan rule. If you open with Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Channel, Mishra's Workshop, great - your deck is built around it and you're so far ahead. If you don't hit it, you can cast balance turn 2 to make the game more "balanced" by forcing your opponent to discard down to parity. (Its also very good at recovering from mulligans).
I would never cut balance from my cube.
New untapped are always a welcome in my books. I love the pathway lands.
Three cards I will be watching very closely:
- Valki, God of Lies. TideHollow Sculler has been amazing because if its 2 power. I've found Mesmeric fiend to be underwhelming. Unfortunately, this creature doesn't have Sculler's ETB/ flicker shenanigans but it is mono-color + Valki seems like a nice card card to for black aggro, black-green recurring decks that need early drops + mana sinks.
- Battle Mammoth - This seems like a very well rounded creature, but I'm not sure if green midrange is really the way to go in vintage cube right now.
- Doomskar - I think the consensus is Wrath of God/ Day of Judgement are the better wrath. I'm not sure if Terminus, Doomskar or Shatter the Sky should be the 3rd wrath. I currently have give it to terminus because it can tuck rather than destroy them.
Rishadan Port isn't doing that great - I will agree with that. Its really not an exciting card these cards. The only thing going for this card is my aggro section is limited to only mono white (which is under drafted in my play group anyways). Rishadan port wheeling signals that white aggro is open.
I don't see what the problem with Armageddon, its insane in aggressive strategies. I've heard arguments that its not as good because of the artifact fast mana the opponent might play, but I personally an affinity for all these Reclamation Sage and I play almost all the possible variants in my cube. (not the red one because I have a lot of artifact hate already in that color). I value them very highly in any creature based deck - aggro or combo.
Its pretty much a 4 mana win the game in any aggressive deck.
Show and Tell is interesting - I do admit is the worst fatty cheat enabler. But what I do like right now is it could be played in Storm decks to power out Bolas Citidal, Thousand-Year Storm etc.
Sneak Attack is almost never going to come out of my cube. It is insane, goes infinite with Palinchron, insane with Eldrazi Titans. This is absolutely devastasting.
Reveillark is another very strong enabler in Recurring Nightmare, Pod decks. This is almost never coming out of my cube.
How are people liking Cabal Therapy?
I've been thinking about Cabal Therapy for 3 reasons:
1. Reanimator Decks:
Outside of Faithless Looting/ Entomb, there are very few ways to get a fatty into to the bin turn 1. Cabal Therapy could be used to target the player themselves, then turn 2 Entomb. This feels like a pretty good play.
2. I've been toying with my spells matter section and I've been thinking about how Cabal Therapy might be pretty good with the discard outlets in blue/ Red such as Magmatic Channeler/ Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, especially if the deck already plays Gitaxian Probe + hand disruption and these decks play the two pyromancers + 4-5 Goblin Rabblemaster Variants.
3. Sacrifice Decks are doing fairly well. This seems like a pretty good enabler for those decks.
Its been a pretty long project. The majority of these cards have been exceptionally difficult to explain. I've revised a few of my explanations of some of the older cards to help explain their concepts/ use cases a bit better to newer players.
I'm currently looking over some of my previous explanations and trying to add more details/ sample game plays/ potentially deck lists. If there are cards that are unclear/ cards you feel are missing, please let me know.
Aether Chaser has synergies with some of Red's best cards such as Purphorous, Embercleave, Hell Rider.
Spiteful Prankster
Irreverent Revelers
Phoenix of Ash
For example all cards that could see play in my cube and would likely do very well, but the rest of the section is already too stiff.
Mystic Sanctuary, Shelldock Isle, Academy Ruins, Tolarian Academy, Castle Vantress, Seat of the Synod are all cards. The competition in this group is too stiff.
Seat/ Castle are too narrow, but they are still "playable" utility lands.
I feel you on this one.
Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion is a card btw - I always think any red 4-5 drops should be compared with him.
When facing against White Weenie/ Green ramp, I find taking out their 1 drops mana dorks/ Savanna Lions early on is incredibly important.